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 Samsung originally made the announcement via Twitter that the update would arrive sometime in September.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!

RIM co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie released a statement yesterday in response to Apple’s latest press conference discussing the antenna issue in their phone. During the conference Steve Jobs showed the press video of other smartphones that he said had similar antenna issues, which included the Blackberry Bold 9700 with the RIM OS. He also mentioned the HTC Droid Eris with Android and the Samsung Omnia ll running Windows Mobile.

Well RIM has fired back with the following statement: “Apple’s attempt to draw RIM into Apple’s self-made debacle is unacceptable. Apple’s claims about RIM products appear to be deliberate attempts to distort the public’s understanding of an antenna design issue and to deflect attention from Apple’s difficult situation. RIM is a global leader in antenna design and has been successfully designing industry-leading wireless data products with efficient and effective radio performance for over 20 years. During that time, RIM has avoided designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and instead has used innovative designs which reduce the risk for dropped calls, especially in areas of lower coverage. One thing is for certain, RIM’s customers don’t need to use a case for their BlackBerry smartphone to maintain proper connectivity. Apple clearly made certain design decisions and it should take responsibility for these decisions rather than trying to draw RIM and others into a situation that relates specifically to Apple.”

Personally I was expecting some sort of response from at least one of the manufacturers that were included in Steve Job’s presentation. RIM called it exactly right, Apple is trying to deflect and tried bringing others into the mix to alleviate their own problem. What Apple also has done is created more enemies in the cell phone manufacturing industry. For starters Apple has only been in this industry for a few years. Their inexperience is coming through with this latest iphone 4 design and they should of just owned up to the problem. They come off very much as a design first company and they obviously chose that over the hardware in this situation. Many of these other manufactures have faced  issues with releases but their PR didn’t involve passing the buck. In the press conference Steve Jobs said something to the effect of “their all good phones”, but in him saying that he’s basically saying look they do it too so stop giving us a hard time. That’s not exactly a good argument. In fact during the conference  a member of the press immediately brought up his claims on the Blackberry phone and said he couldn’t reproduce the problem on his phone. Steve said it had to do with the location also. So where do we go from here? One thing is for certain, this antenna story is far from over. People are already broadcasting themselves on YouTube showing the signal issue while using the bumper on their iphone 4. Apple may want to revisit that solution.

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.

In the past week developers over at the xda forum announced an Android build for the HTC HD2. I’m extremely pleased with the progress and am looking forward to hearing about more updates. Let’s keep in mind these developers aren’t getting paid besides community donations. Now for the build itself it’s in the very early stages. Basically this means as of now you cannot use the Android build on your HTC HD2 as a working OS. The early release is also a bit different than the roms some of you are familiar with. With this release you can install it while your in Windows Mobile 6.5. You heard correct not even a rom but a file to install. Again these are the early stages of this project and from what I hear a lot of the issues being worked out begin with the Linux kernel. Personally over at the xda forum I said I wasn’t going to install the build on my phone until it’s complete. Yes that’s right, I decided to keep my HTC HD2. Not really by choice but since TMobile USA doesn’t have anything comparable I don’t have too many options. The phone itself is a great piece of hardware but as we all know the OS is clunky. In fact if you visit the xda thread on this project the majority of people are eagerly seeking Android on this device opposed to a Windows Mobile 7 OS.  Some have mentioned that HTC should contribute resources to this project since so many people are calling for Android on the HTC HD2. Such a far fetched idea but really why not? I mean this is what the community is asking for, but then again when money is involved I doubt HTC is concerned about Android on the HTC HD2. After all they released the Evo and have already moved far beyond this phone and it’s OS. Anyways those were my thoughts on the Android project for the HTC HD2, I’ll see you guys in the next post.

Since Apple had no interest in bringing the Adobe Flash Player to the iPad or any of their other mobile devices a developer has done it for them utilizing the latest player that runs on Android. From the developer’s description Frash is a port of the Adobe Flash runtime for the latest version of Android. The developer continues by explaining that Frash can run almost every Flash programs natively in the Mobile Safari browser. This news is pretty interesting considering the attacks Apple has launched at Adobe and the Adobe Flash team. Although I think the iPad is a complete waste I do think it’s impressive to see developers stepping up to the plate and taking up the challenge. Numerous times I’ve spoken about Apple’s skewed points of views on Adobe and Adobe Flash. The worst of all is claiming it will crash a computer without backing this up with any kind of data from a stress test. A port like this just proves that the technology is fully capable of running on Apple’s portable devices. It also shows that not everyone is sold on what Apple is selling with trashing Flash programming. Obviously theirs a large amount of people that  would like to view all the content on the device they purchased. By the way currently the U.S. government has an open antitrust investigation looking into certain business practices by Apple.