Bellevue (WA) - T-Mobile’s Google Android smartphone has reached an incredibly important milestone, reaching one million in US sales in the six months since the phone launched. The smartphone now accounts for almost two thirds of all of the 3G devices available on the T-Mobile network.
T-Mobile is the US’s fourth largest wireless network operator and has over 32.1 million customers. The company started selling the G1 Smartphone on October 22, 2008.
It is being reported by mobile advertising specialist AdMob that the Android OS now accounts for 6% for the entire smartphone market in the United States. Though the popularity is increasing, Android still has a while to go until it beats out Windows Mobile, which holds an 11% market share, the Blackberry OS at 22% and the iPhone, which takes the cake with 50% of the smartphone market in the U.S.
During a conference call last week Eric Schmidt, Google CEO stated that he felt the Android had a chance for great success this year. Schmidt claimed that the open source strategy was gaining ground and hinted that the company would deliver future announcements.
“There are announcements happening between now and the end of the year that are quite significant from operators and new hardware partners in the Android space, which I won't preannounce except to say that they really do fulfill much of the vision that we laid out more than a year ago,” stated Schmidt during the call. “On the netbook side, there are a number of people who have actually taken Android and ported it over to netbook or netbook-similar devices.”
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Telenor Pakistan has reportedly agreed to award 3G network deployment contract to NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks) in Pakistan, told us a reliable source in NSN.
Earlier there was this feeling in NSN that they might not get away with this contract as Huawei gave them a tough competition.
Telenor’s spokesman didn’t confirm it and said that he can’t comment on the issue at this point of time; however, he was enthusiastic enough to validate that Telenor Pakistan is all set ready for 3G deployment and it is eagerly for 3G license auction.
Mobile phone maker Samsung has confirmed that it intends to launch at least three phones this year that are built with Google's Linux-based Android operating system, including two that are destined for US mobile carriers. The move will boost the availability of Android-based handsets and give consumers some new Android options besides T-Mobile's G1, the current flagship Android handset.
Samsung first announced its Android plans last year, after it was revealed that the company had formed a sizable team of Linux and Java experts to build an Android touchscreen phone reportedly similar to the company's Omnia handset, which runs Windows Mobile. The products suffered some delays and it became unclear whether Samsung would still deliver an Android phone on Sprint's network when Sprint backed away from Android.
Major mobile operators in the United States have been cautious about Android and slow to accept the new platform. Verizon and AT&T, the two largest carriers in the US, have both declined to make a commitment to Google's OS. Sprint and T-Mobile were both on board from the start, but Sprint's early trepidation left T-Mobile standing alone as the only strong adopter.
Sprint boss Dan Hesse said in October 2008 that the platform wasn't fit to ship yet. Sprint's Android product manager provided more insight into the carrier's concerns and criticized Google's handling of the platform in an interview that was later retracted. He praised Google's confidence and vision, but suggested that the company needed to be more pragmatic and more responsive to carrier requirements.
Samsung executive Won-Pyo Hong told Forbes last week that Samsung encountered some difficulty with carrier concerns over Android, but he says that his company's Android phones are still on track for release. He also indicated that Samsung's own version of the platform will not be Google-centric.
"Some operators were concerned about the vision Google has [and] that affected [timing]," Hong told Forbes. "Our commitment is more to the Android phone than the Google Experience device."
Google has taken some steps to accommodate carrier interests while scaling back on its original vision of unprecedented freedom. For example, Google has removed a third-party tethering program from the App Store, blocked users from installing custom firmware on carrier-subsidized handsets, and imposed limitations on App Store accessibility for users of unlocked developer handsets. These moves haven't been entirely popular with some users, but have likely helped to increase the carriers' comfort level with Google's vision, thus paving the way for broader Android adoption.
The most visible sign that Google's increased willingness to compromise is getting through to carriers is Verizon's recent change in tone about Android. Verizon initially made a very strong commitment to LiMo as its platform of choice, citing LiMo's approach to governance and conformity with existing carrier business models as primary factors in the decision. The company recently indicated that Android could be back on the menu when it told reporters that it is no longer "in a position where we shun one operating system in favor over another operating system."
Android's recent technical improvements could be another factor in the recent increase in carrier support for Android. The lack of an onscreen keyboard and several of the platform's other weaknesses at launch have since been corrected. The platform has gained a strong touchscreen keyboard, complete localization support, and a number of other critical features. The localization support will likely contribute to boosting Android's presence abroad. A keyboard-less G1 refresh is coming to Vodafone in Europe while Lenovo and other vendors have Android products in the works for Asia.
Android hasn't been welcomed with the kind of enthusiasm that Google originally expected and the platform's growth has been stifled by cautious carriers who aren't ready to cede control or allow Google to disrupt the status quo. Google's recent concessions to restrictive carrier demands, which are clearly helping the platform gain ground, show that the search giant is beginning to accept the realities of the market.
The latest revision of the iPhone SDK agreement that developers must sign forbids jailbreaking or creating apps for jailbroken phones.
The "iPhone Developer Program License Agreement" governs what iPhone developers can and cannot do. Now, jailbreaking, assisting in jailbreaking, and developing and distributing jailbreak apps are among the things that the latest revision of that agreement does not condone.
Of course, Apple forbids the creation of apps that violate privacy, facilitate crimes, or violate intellectual property laws. But registered developers can no longer jailbreak their own phones or assist others in jailbreaking their phones, including (but not limited to) working on projects such as QuickPwn or PwnageTool. Developers are also forbidden from using the iPhone OS, SDK, or other developer tools to develop applications for distribution in any way other than the App Store or Ad Hoc distribution—which of course rules out distribution via Cydia, free or otherwise.
The relevant clauses in the agreement, a copy of which was made available to Ars, are as follows:
(e)You will not, through use of the Apple Software, services or otherwise, create any Application or other program that would disable, hack or otherwise interfere with the Security Solution, or any security, digital signing, digital rights management, verification or authentication mechanisms implemented in or by the iPhone operating system software, iPod touch operating system software, this Apple Software, any services or other Apple software or technology, or enable others to do so; and
(f) Applications developed using the Apple Software may only be distributed if selected by Apple (in its sole discretion) for distribution via the App Store or for limited distribution on Registered Devices (ad hoc distribution) as contemplated in this Agreement.
Though jailbreaking allows access to apps that Apple doesn't approve of and enables unlocking the phone from approved carriers, it also allows users and developers access to the UNIX underpinnings of iPhone OS, which both groups could have perfectly legitimate reasons for wanting. These provisions aren't likely to stop the iPhone Dev Team from working on a jailbreak for iPhone OS 3.0, but there are certainly developers who will think twice about helping in those efforts or distributing a rejected app for jailbroken phones, lest they lose access to the iPhone developer program altogether.
Jailbreaking will continue as long as it offers even a small subset of users something they want but Apple won't allow. Still, preventing developers from being involved in jailbreaking in any way can actually be a hinderance to developers looking to squeeze the best performance possible out of their apps, or those looking to experiment outside of Apple's walled garden.
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Samsung Telecommunications America announced the first WiMax-enabled Mobile Internet Device (MID) today at the International CTIA Wireless conference.
Called the Mondi, the touch-screen, pocket-size device is designed for use on the Clear mobile WiMax network from Clearwire, Samsung officials announced on Tuesday evening. Mondi derives its name from the Latin word for "world."
No price was announced, but it will be available at Best Buy and Clear stores, as well as Samsung's online store sometime in the second quarter, Samsung officials said. The black-slider form factor of the Mondi device extends horizontally to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard and an optical mouse. It runs the Opera 9.5 Web browser and has a 4.3-in. touch screen.
The Mondi runs on the Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. In addition to WiMax, it connects to Wi-Fi, as well as GPS and Bluetooth 2.0. It has a 3.0-megapixel camera and camcorder, and comes with 4GB of internal memory. Other specifications were not released.
"The Mondi provides the power of a laptop but easily fits in the hand or a pocket," said Omar Khan, senior vice president of strategy and product management at Samsung.
Clearwire now operates mobile WiMax service in Portland, Ore., and Baltimore and expects to launch in 80 markets by 2010.
Khan said Samsung supports WiMax networks globally and felt the need to build a WiMax product even though the capabilities of Clear in the U.S. are still in an early stage.
"We do believe it's important to support WiMax to take advantage of 4G speeds," Khan said. "Everything starts at a nascent stage, and the Mondi is our first [device] to support that."
He said the Mondi was not a phone, and does not provide voice services. However, Khan left open the possibility of future voice support in the Mondi or other products, saying that Samsung's road map provides for dual-network mode capability with WiMax and other networks he did not name.
Khan said that Samsung was "on track" to provide Android devices in the second half of the year.
And regarding LTE, a future competitor to WiMax, he said Samsung was cooperating with LTE carriers on trials of that technology. "We are committed to being a leader in both WiMax and LTE," Khan said.
Asked whether Samsung devices would run Windows applications across other operating systems, Khan said Samsung was releasing a software developer kit next month as part of its Samsung Mobile Innovator Program to foster creation of widgets that would allow Windows to run on Android or Symbian.
Under that strategy, the browser in the device will run applications and not the operating system, he said.
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Since firmware 2.2.1 came out and updated the baseband from 2.28.00 to 2.30.03, many people accidentally updated, and are now stuck on baseband 2.30.03. I wonder how you can “accidentally update” your firmware as it takes a few steps, but anyways… I’ve had a few emails from people asking me how to downgrade baseband 2.30.03 to 2.28.08.
If you’re looking to unlock your iPhone with yellowsn0w, you can’t do that as long as you will on baseband 2.30.03. Unfortunately, you can not downgrade baseband 2.30.03 to 2.28.00! Sorry folks but you should have read the Dev Team’s warning!
Now the good news is that I’m very confident the Dev Team is working on updating YellowSn0w so it works with firmware 2.2.1, baseband 2.30.03.
You can still downgrade your firmware from 2.2.1 to 2.2 in iTunes by hitting SHIFT + RESTORE and selecting firmware 2.2 but you will most likely have errors and even if you manage to downgrade, you still won’t be able to downgrade the baseband.
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