Droid will replace the status of iPhone?
It seemed as if the Motorola Droid based on Google Android platform will become the iPhone killer and replace the top status of iPhone in smartphone market. The Droid, the brainchild of Motorola, Google and Verizon, is the latest device to try, once again, to dethrone the iPhone as the De Facto smart phone.
To start, let's look at the pros.
Setup was a breeze. It came with a pre-installed Facebook application, so all I had to do was log in, and it imported my friends' contact info onto the phone. A great new feature is its ability to run multiple apps at the same time, allowing me to check my e-mail while listening to Pandora Radio, a long-missed amenity on the iPhone.
In addition to Pandora Radio, the Android Market (Google's equivalent to Apple's App Store) offers roughly 10,000 apps with equivalents to most major iPhone apps, andthe number of Droid apps is poised to increase significantly without the strict restrictions Apple places on its app approval process. Also, most apps give you a variety of settings. For example, the Browser app allows you to change the text encoding for viewing webpages to Unicode (UTF-8). I don't know why I'd ever want to do that, but I'm glad to know the option is available.
With the exception of the Droid's replaceable 16 GB microSD memory card and five megapixel camera and flash, the hardware of the two devices is almost identical, and so are their prices: $199 for the phone with a new data plan, with unlimited data plans starting at about $30 per month.
Now for the the cons.
With the iPhone and Apple's iTunes, my phone is automatically backed up every time I connect it to my computer to recharge. It just does it. I don't have to worry about transferfing my contacts or trying to download my friends' phone numbers via their Facebook profiles.
The Droid has a keyboard, but it's almost completely flat, which does little to help those with fat fingers. Consequently, it's also heavier than the iPhone, and while I was using the Droid, the back panel slipped off a few times when I would pull it out of my pocket. Another point of frustration was its lack of gestures for its multi-touch screen — common to the iPhone — such as "pinch-to-zoom." Ironically, this is because Apple holds a copyright on such gestures. (On a related note of copyrighting, the term "Droid" is actually on loan from Lucasfilm, the creators of "Star Wars.")
Being able to run multiple apps at a time sounds like a good idea at first, but the reality is that mobile phones are not desktop computers, and increasing the number of apps running at a given time significantly reduces battery life, as well as performance. An application you're running in the background might freeze and crash, but you'll never notice it until your battery dies an hour later.
From a more technical perspective, I was very irritated with the lack of a consistent user interface (or UI) for the Droid. It seems less responsive than the iPhone. For example, some apps look like Web pages made in the early '90s, or it will lag slightly when I scroll. With the iPhone, Apple has provided an extensive and consistent UI framework to its app developers, so I can spend less time learning how to use an app and more time just using it.
At the end of the day, an iPhone will do most things you'll want it to do well and often automatically. On the other hand, the Droid will do anything you'd ever want it to and leave you up to discovering whather or not you really wanted to. With that said, I'd have to recommend the iPhone for normal to text-savvy users and leave the Droid to the extremely tech-savvy power users.
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Google Promotes Place Pages in Shop Windows
Google is introducing a mobile marketing campaign for Place Pages which is a service for businesses that faced some early criticism when it launched in September. Place Pages are Web sites that Google creates for businesses that appear on Google Maps. The pages include basic information like an address, maps and nearby transit options, as well as customer reviews posted to sites like Tripadvisor and Urbanspoon.
Google planned to announce Monday that it has begun sending out decals -- basically stickers -- that businesses with Place Pages can post in their shop windows. The decals display a type of bar code, called a QR code, that mobile phones can "scan" to find related information online.
People with iPhones, Android phones and BlackBerry devices will be able to use an application on the phone to take a photograph of the QR code in the window. The application will recognize the QR code in the photograph and launch the business' Place Page in the phone's browser.
IPhone users will be able to use the QuickMark application, which usually costs US$0.99 but will be free to the first 40,000 people who download it starting on Monday, Google said. On Android devices, consumers can use the free Barcode Scanner application. Businesses can update and correct information on their own Place Pages. Google said it is sending the decals to the 100,000 most-searched-for businesses that have updated their Place Pages through Google's Local Business Center.
More than a million businesses have already "claimed" a Places Page, said Michaela Prescott, head of geomarketing for Google. It chose the most popular of those businesses by checking how many people are searching for them on Google or looking for driving directions to the business, she said.
Google plans to take the decal program international, and expects to hand out more decals to popular businesses early next year, she said. Google introduced Place Pages in late September. When it launched, industry observers noticed that Place Pages were being ranked in Google results, leading to concern that Google was driving traffic to its own pages -- which feature advertising -- rather than to the source of information online. Google said it had taken steps to prevent the Place Pages from appearing in its search results, although some continue to appear.
Via PCWorld
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Google Unleashes a Diverse Army of Android Phones
A year late, the Google smartphone which is based on Android platform is finally living up to its promise.Then it has to get ready for facing the challenges from the kings of smartphone market. As the leader of smartphone market, iPhone looked down on this newbie at the very start. And it is seemed as if the fans of Android are not so crazy as the fans of iPhone. But now, a slew of Google phones have suddenly descended on the market, with dozens more expected to arrive late this year and early in 2010.
No single Android-based phone is likely to match the runaway success of the iPhone.But the wave of Google-supported phones could add up to a broad hit that sells more handsets than Apple, as Nokia and BlackBerry already do. Google's Android could be running on 18 percent of smartphones by 2012, say analysts at Gartner Group. That could put the Google phones second only to Nokia, which for years has been the dominant smartphone maker worldwide.
Unlike Nokia, Apple, and BlackBerry, Google doesn't make the phones themselves (and denies rumors that it ever will). The search company instead rewrote free software.to create the Android system that gives handsets the smarts of a low-end PC. The software first appeared to much fanfare and good reviews on a single handset in October 2008. Then it appeared to stall.
In the past month or so, the system has blossomed. It's now on more than two dozen phones. And to firmly establish itself, Google's Android needs only a few more hits like the Verizon Droid. More than a million buyers are expected to snap up the Droid by year's end, less than two months after its introduction. Troubled Motorola, meanwhile, is betting heavily on Android and is said to be readying a new class of cheap smartphone running the Google software.
No doubt, the iPhone has a huge lead with more than 100,000 applicationsavailable for download. Just like with PCs, it's the apps that make smartphones useful to consumers and that will help drive sales. But Android has ample choice in 10,000 available apps, and more are coming.
It's also hard to beat free. The search giant essentially gives away the Android system, which it is using to corner the wireless world much like its free searches captured PCs. These phones make clear what Google is after, with their tight integration into Google apps such as Gmail, maps, and Google Voice.
And it's hard to beat easy. Cellphone makers like Motorola and carriers like Verizon are encouraged to change the Android software, lather on extras, or otherwise customize what the system does. That flexibility is attractive to the companies that make and sell the phones. And it can be to buyers.
Android phones that are hitting the market are remarkably different from each other, unlike the consistent—some might argue repetitive—look and feel of phones from Apple, RIM, and Nokia. To get a flavor, we took a look at three very different Android handsets that hint at what's to come:
 Verizon Droid ($200 with contract). The handset has a beautiful, 3.7-inch touch screen and hardware keyboard that slides out from underneath. The Motorola-made handset itself feels heftier and sturdier than other models; with its metal components and hard, squared corners, it's more industrial and practical than pretty.
The software, too, is more straight forward. It's a fast, clean implementation of the Google-designed Android. The keyboard is better than a software keyboard, though it's disappointing with almost-flat keys that seem harder to find than on competing Android phones.
With that said, it's the only phone so far that's running the latest version, Android 2.0, with its added capabilities. The Droid, for example, can sync with multiple Gmail accounts and merge multiple E-mail accounts from a variety of providers into a single in-box. All in all, the Droid is easy enough for anyone to use out of the box.
But even its name suggests an orientation to someone who wants a fully powered companion at their fingertips. The Droid, more than other phones, bares Android's techy feel. It's more for a tinkerer than, say, the iPhoneor Palm Pre. The Droid is for someone who wants to fully tap a phone's potential and who isn't beholden to style and soft edges.
 T-Mobile Cliq ($100 with contract). T-Mobile calls this Motorola handset "the first phone with social skills." And the Cliq is all about social networking, with "Motoblur" software that blends Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and a variety of other Web sharing services into a single space. The phone gives the networks top billing, throwing the latest Tweets and Facebook updates onto its home screen.
The hardware itself is chic, with a 3.1-inch screen that is smaller than competitors but that allows for soft, rounded corners and an overall size that slips easily into a hip pocket. The hardware keyboard slides out from underneath and is one of the best on any phone. The raised keys are well marked with bright lettering and easy to distinguish from each other. One quibble is that the bottom row, including the important space bar, can be hard to reach past the raised lip of the enclosing case. The phone can also seem sluggish at times, and battery life is short. (Motorola has said a software fix is coming.)
It is networkers who will best like the Cliq. Updates from friends flow across the home screen, which at times can appear cluttered and overwhelming for the less-energetic butterfly. There's no limiting updates, for example, to a subset of your 500 Facebook friends. Updates are just as easy to contribute, with the Cliq spreading a message across multiple accounts in one swoop.
 Sprint Hero ($100 with contract). Another sexy case with rounded corners encloses this 3.2-inch touch screen. Handset maker HTC did away with the hardware keyboard that is popular among Android phones but has packed in more software features than any other model.
HTC has layered a whole new skin that it calls "Sense" across the Android software, giving it a flexible look that's easy to tailor to a user's liking. Sense pumps the Hero full of customized and standard Android widgets, little bits of software that are like the apps that might be later downloaded to other phones and that display their information immediately on the home screen.
The phone, for example, offers out-of-box syncing with Microsoft Outlook's contacts and calendar, an obvious app given HTC's long experience with Windows Mobile. Other apps customize information to a user's liking, be it weather, sports, or E-mail. A custom widget called "Footprints" makes it easy to geotag photos, add voice memos, and post them to Google maps.
All this can be overwhelming, especially for someone used to the iPhone's emphasis on simplicity. But the Sense software helps with a generous seven home screens for organizing widgets and apps. The Hero also lets users redesign the phone's look for different times. Innovative "scenes" flip weather and the Footprint app to the front for traveling, or Outlook appointments and E-mail while at the office.
Via U.S.News
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Google Gives A Slightly Crippled Maps Navigation To All Android Users
Google Maps Navigation arrives for Android 1.6
You must remember that, a few weeks ago there was a lot of excitement surrounding the launch of Google Maps Navigation for Android. And One of the highlights of Android 2.0 has been the Google Maps Navigation app that delivers voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation on your phone for free.
Unfortunately, it only worked with Android 2.0 and up, which means only the newest devices right now, like the Motorola Droid. But today Google has given an early holiday present to its other Android users: Maps Navigation to anyone running Android 1.6 and higher, including the T-Mobile G1 and the T-Mobile Mytouch 3G .
It means that anyone with an Android device can now use this awesome new feature. This release also includes a new Layers feature that lets you overlay more information on the map, such as transit lines and Wikipedia articles about places, but apparently not all of the features found in Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 will work in the 1.6 version. The one example Google gives is that you can’t use the “navigate to” voice command. So you will had to enter your destination by the keyboard.
The update is available in the Android Market today, unlike other navigation apps or location-based services from the likes of TomTom, Garmin, and TeleNav, you don't have to pay a one-time fee or monthly subscription to use Google Maps Navigation. All your need is a data connection.
Sadly, the service is only allowed in U.S., and Google warns that it’s still in beta, something which we’ve come to ignore the meaning of thanks to Google’s own Gmail.
 Android
In July 2005, Google acquired Android, a small startup company based in Palo Alto, CA. Android’s co-founders who went to work at Google included Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger), Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire), Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile), and Chris White (one of the first engineers at WebTV). At the time, little was known about the functions of Android other than they made software for mobile phones. This began rumors that Google was planning to enter the mobile phone market, although it was unclear at the time what function they might perform in that market.
At Google, the team, led by Rubin, developed a Linux-based mobile device OS which they were marketing to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, upgradeable system. It was reported that Google had already lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and signaled to carriers that it was open to various degrees of cooperation on their part.
In November 2007 Google announced the introduction of the Android platform, along with the Open Handset Alliance, a group of hardware, software, and telecommunications companies that had agreed to participate in the development and distribution of the Android platform.
 Google Maps
Google Maps is Google’s free web-based mapping application.
As of May 2008, Google Maps includes photos, videos, and user-created maps along with location searches. It uses Panoramio and YouTube for the content.
Via Cnet and the Washington Post
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