Author: Chuck Falzone

Beleaguered owners of Samsung’s Behold II have been up in arms lately as it has become clear that Samsung would not in fact be providing an upgrade to Android 2.0 or beyond, despite their previous promises. Tonight, word comes from Samsung of an update to the phone: from 1.5 to 1.6. I’d say this is a bittersweet moment for Behold II owners, but my guess is it’s much more bitter than sweet, as it’s been the better part of a year since 1.6 was state of the art.

Give Samsung some credit for making the announcement right amongst those most upset about the situation, in a thread on AndroidSPIN’s forums:

“To All:

“Samsung Mobile and T-Mobile USA are planning to update the Behold II to Android 1.6 which provides access to Google Maps Navigation, Google Voice Search capability and quick search box for Android.

“The update will also supply additional benefits including Swype, an improved Media Player, updated core Android applications and improved Bluetooth capabilities. However, the Behold II is not upgradeable beyond Android 1.6.”

There you have it: an upgrade to 1.6 to soften the blow of definitely not ever upgrading any further. 1.6 certainly an improvement over 1.5, and throwing in Swype and a few extras is nice and all, but I’ve got to think that ultimately this only fans the flames of folks who are already angry that Samsung’s promise of 2.0 has not been fulfilled. Making it worse, the idea that it’s not technically possible to upgrade the Behold II past 1.6 rings false.

Lending credence to the announcements authenticity, a link to the forum post was tweeted by an official Twitter accounts of Samsung.

We’d love to hear how Behold II owners are feeling about this development in the comments!

We’re not sure if this is a bug that will get fixed, an easter egg, or what, but when we heard reports of unrooted EVO users being able to use the screen capture app ShootMe, we had to test it out ourselves. And it worked! You’re looking at the results of our test on the left.

Previously, getting screenshots from an unrooted Android device required hooking it up to a P.C. that has the Android SDK installed. Applications in the Market that take screenshots, including ShootMe, all note requiring a rooted phone to work.

We tested this on a stock HTC EVO 4G distributed at Google I/O. Let us know in the comments if other screen capture apps work on your unrooted EVO, or if you’ve come across other methods of getting screen captures on unrooted devices.

Photo: Daniel Sancho

We all rejoiced when we heard that in Froyo, Android would officially implement a way to store apps on SD card storage (commonly known as “apps2sd”). Documentation on how this will work has been published, and some of the details, while reasonable in the context of addressing real concerns, may be surprising. The most important surprise: no apps currently in the Market can be stored on the SD card without being updated.

While many of us have already taken advantage of unofficial ways to use sd card space for app storage, its inclusion in the OS will encourage developers to think big, and will remove a barrier to entry for those deciding whether to buy an Android phone. Not to mention the fact that what’s been implemented is a way to store apps on any external storage, not necessarily an SD card. This could have implications as we see Android popping up on different kinds of devices. But we waited so long for an official solution because of a number of barriers:  developers needed to be assured that app storage on a card that can be mounted as a mass storage device would not facilitate piracy; users needed a seamless, easy experience that does not require special partitioning of the SD card, and there had to be some provision for the fact that sometimes sd cards get taken out or are otherwise not available.

The implementation of this feature in Froyo addresses all those concerns, but it does so by placing some limitations on how it works. Or rather, by allowing app developers to place limitations.

The key limitation is that developers will choose whether or not their app can be installed on external storage. Why would a developer choose not to do so? Froyo’s apps2sd solution does not require a specially partitioned sd card, so there is an issue when the phone is connected to another computer and the user mounts the sd card as a mass storage device. When that happens, it’s as if the sd card has been removed: apps stored there are unavailable to the system. Because of this, Android’s documentation recommends that apps that use certain features (such as services, alarm services, live wallpapers or folders, widgets, and others) should not be eligible to be installed on external storage. Games and other apps not deeply integrated with the system will be the best candidates for external installation.

For safety’s sake, the assumption is that unless specifically authorized by the developer, an app cannot be installed on external storage. So, until developers update current apps to include this authorization,  no current apps can installed externally.

Another important concern was making sure externally installed apps would not be more easily pirated. To address this, apps installed on the SD card will be encrypted in such a way that they can only be decrypted by the device they were installed with. In other words, if you remove the SD card and put it in another phone, the apps stored on the card will be unavailable to you.

Two final notes: private user data is never stored on external storage, even if the app it is associated with is, and the documentation claims that “there is no effect on the application performance so long as the external storage is mounted on the device,” with no mention of requirements for the SD card’s transfer speed.

Thanks to Thomas Riley for pointing me to the official documentation of how this works.

Photo: Danny Sullivan

With all the rumors flying around, it’s practically a given that Froyo, the next version of Android, will be launched today at Google I/O. We have a bit more indication that this is the case, as well as news that points to a launch of the next version after that, Gingerbread, later this year.

Adding to the indications (e.g. here and here) that we’ll hear a lot more about Froyo today is the fact that pieces of new code are being dropped into the Android Open Source Project, a fact noticed by Cyanogen and not-quite-confirmed by Google’s Dan Morrill.

As to the timing of Gingerbread’s release, the folks at EuroDroid found a clue in the documentation of WebM, the open media format Google announced yesterday. The WebM FAQ notes that “WebM support in Android is expected in the Gingerbread release (currently planned for Q4, 2010).”

So we learn two things there: Gingerbread is planned for later this year, and it will include support for playing WebM media.

As to version numbers, we’ve heard that Froyo will be 2.2, but it could well be 2.5, making Gingerbread anything from 2.3 to 3.0.

The good folks at AndroidRelease had the opportunity to spend some quality time with Samsung’s impending superphone, the Galaxy S, at the Google I/O conference today, and captured the moment on video.

In addition to a look at the next generation of TouchWiz (which they give a thumbs up to), they note the hardware’s uncanny resemblance to the iPhone, and got a bit of information on when we might get our hands on it: the Samsung reps mentioned a global launch this summer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

No more teases, Sprint Hero owners. No more waiting. 2.1 is here. Get yourself on over to HTC’s site for the download, then head to Sprint and follow the instructions.

One big caveat: installing the update will wipe your phone. Contacts, email, etc. synced with a Google account should be okay, but “you will lose contacts that have not been synced to an email account, text messages that have not been forwarded, saved voicemail messages older than 5 days, voicemails older than 20 days that have not been listened to, and call history. The calendar and email settings will also revert back to factory defaults. Pictures, music, videos and files are stored on your microSD memory card, which should be removed before updating your phone.”

Just a quick note to direct folks to our Twitter account for up to the minute news on Google IO this week. Today at 9am Pacific, we’ll be live tweeting the keynote speech that kicks off the conference.

Of course, we’ll post any big news out of the conference here, too!

QuickPlay Media has released PrimeTime2Go, a subscription-based Android app that not only allows you to watch TV shows over wifi, but also to use the phone as a DVR. Oddly, the app is only available for Motorola’s Android phones: Droid, Cliq, Cliq XT and Backflip.

QuickPlay boasts a growing library of shows, including Lost, The Office, 30 Rock, and Mythbusters. Users can subscribe to favorite shows to have them automatically delivered to the phone “soon after the original air date” and can rewind, fast forward, and pause shows to take a call.

Motorola phone owners can download the app from the Market, and pay $9.99 per month for the service via PayPal. The service is U.S. only for now, but it “will be available on future devices and in other geographic locations at a later date.”

As we predicted in March, Microsoft has strong-armed HTC into signing a licensing agreement to pay Microsoft royalties for HTC’s Android phones.

The good news here is that an Apple-style lawsuit is unlikely now that HTC has agreed to cough up the money. The bad news is that we’ll all be paying Microsoft a bit for each HTC Android phone we buy.

This is the latest in a string of licensing agreements Microsoft has reached with companies that use Linux-based code, which Microsoft claims to hold patents on. Since no one to date has challenged Microsoft on these claims, it’s unclear whether they would hold up in court.

Android generates nearly the same ad requests as iPhone from a much smaller marketshare.

AdMob’s just-released report (pdf) of mobile ad data from February, 2010 includes great news for our favorite operating system, noting that “Android was the fastest growing operating system in the AdMob network year-over-year.” But more importantly, putting the report in the context of other recent data suggests that Android users are a better audience for advertisers than users of iPhones or Blackberries.

Android users, only 5.2% of U.S. smartphones, accounted for 42% of ad requests in AdMob’s report. IPhone users generated 44%, nearly the same percentage of ad requests as Android, but from five times the marketshare: 25.3%. Blackberry lags, with 41.6% market share generating only 7% of ad requests. (U.S. smartphone marketshare via comScore’s report last month.)

Worldwide, Android’s share of smartphone ad requests jumped from 2% in February, 2009 to 24% in February, 2010. numbers follow a similar pattern. That 24%, half iPhone’s share, comes from less than 5% of the world’s smartphone market, while Apple generates its 50% of requests from almost 15% of worldwide smartphone sales. Again, Blackberry trails far behind, its almost 20% of worldwide smartphones accounting for only 4% of ad requests. (Worldwide smartphone marketshare via Gartner’s report last month.)

What does this mean? It means that the average Android user is much more active in generating ad requests than users of other platforms, both via web browsing and in ad-supported apps. Simply put, advertisers’ money is much better spent on Android users than on iPhone or Blackberry users.

Skype and Verizon announced at CTIA that a Skype Mobile app will be available in the Android market beginning Thursday, March 25, for users of the Droid, Droid Eris, and Devour on Verizon. The app is not the VOIP app you might be imagining: it relies on Verizon’s voice network to connect calls.

The app will allow users to:

• make and receive unlimited Skype-to-Skype voice calls
• send and receive unlimited IMs with other Skype users
• manage their Skype contact list within the app
• make international calls at Skype’s calling rates.

The two companies announced they’d be partnering on this project earlier this month. This week’s announcement gives us more specific information about the timing of release (this week!) and the features of the app.

A Skype representative was noncommittal when asked if or when they might bring a pure VOIP app to Android, and I believe I read a big, fat “nope” between the lines, especially given their more positive noncommittal response to other inquiries.

If you’re a Verizon customer who uses Skype, let us know what you think about the app once you’ve had the chance to try it out. If you use the Skype Lite app that was available more generally in the Market, know that if you uninstall it, it’ll be gone forever: Skype has pulled it from the market. And if you’re interested in using a VOIP service on your Android phone, your best bet might be to check out other apps like Fring or Tubaloo.

Image: Vladimir Vukićević

Jay Sullivan, vice president of mobile at Mozilla, told CNET today that his goal is to deliver a beta of Firefox for Android in late 2010.

Sullivan confirmed that, as we recently heard, development is underway, and while he stressed he could not make promises, he did state his goal of having the project in beta later this year. The main hurdle is getting the Gecko platform running well in Android, and they plan to support HTML5’s video tag for in-browser video playback.

Of course, aiming at a beta late this year makes us wonder whether an alpha might be available to play with sooner than that.

Firefox Mobile is currently available for the Nokia N900 and N810. Development on a version for Windows Mobile has stopped.

Today must have been Android App Update Day at Google: we saw new versions of Listen, Shopper and Voice hit the market. Of these, Voice saw the most significant changes.

Previously,  alerts of new voice and text messages were pushed out every fifteen minutes. In fact, I had turned them off, since alerts hit my phone via email more quickly than native Google Voice alerts. But if you enable Inbox Synchronization in the new version of the app, alerts will hit your phone within seconds. And turning on this feature will also tell Voice to stop forwarding text messages to your phone, handy if you are allotted a limited number each month.

Besides this speed boost, the new version of Voice also adds a handy contact strip that pops up when you tap a contact’s avatar within the app. If you’ve used a Nexus One, you’ll recognize this easy way to choose how you want to get in touch with someone.

While these changes are welcome, I’ve heard recent complaints that Voice is not more deeply integrated with Android, and that the transcriptions are still more humorous than useful. If you use the Google Voice app, what’s your opinion of it?

Sprint and Motorola announced the i1 today, a new Android phone featuring push-to-talk functionality on Sprint’s iDEN network, “military spec” toughness and a few interesting extras.

Besides its rugged good looks, the i1 includes a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, a 3.1 inch HVGA screen, and a nice slate of preinstalled apps: Swype virtual keyboard, Opera Mini 5 browser, and Microsoft Document Viewer. In addition, Flash 8-enabled sites will work in the Android browser via Flash Lite.

The i1 does have a few significant downsides, though: it will launch sporting Android 1.5 and one of those tiny 2.5mm jacks that none of your headphones will fit into. And while you’ll zip along on wifi networks, don’t expect to be able to pull data via 3G.

Sprint has not specified a release date for the i1, but does have an i1 site where you can sign up to be alerted about its availability.

Rumors have been swirling that Sprint would be announcing the WiMax-powered HTC Supersonic at CTIA this week, and it looks like another sign is pointing in that direction. Sprint Premier customers report receiving an alert that the carrier will make “an exciting announcement about a groundbreaking new device” on Tuesday.

The curious folks on Sprint’s community forum posted screengrabs of chats with Sprint customer service reps that don’t quite confirm that the announcement will in fact be about the Supersonic. One way or the other, we’ll know for sure very soon.

Source: Engadget

Right now, we’re all worrying about Apple’s patent claims against HTC, but Android may face a similar attack from Microsoft.

It’s not terribly well known that Microsoft claims that it owns significant intellectual property used in Linux, the operating system at the heart of Android. Starting in 2006, Microsoft began reaching licensing deals with a number of companies that use the open source OS, among them Novell,  I-O Data, Samsung, LG Electronics and most recently, Amazon.

All these deals are similar, but as an example, Amazon has agreed to pay Microsoft licensing fees to use Linux on Amazon.com and on the Kindle. Read that again and let it sink in.

Many have voiced skepticism that Microsoft could successfully defend their claims, but so far, companies have rolled over and complied rather than take the question to court.

So, what about Android? Is it far-fetched to wonder if Microsoft might bring similar claims our way as they prepare to launch Windows Phone 7 Series? And if they do, will they be looking for cash, or will they prefer to cripple a competitor or try to shut it down entirely? Even if they just pursue a licensing deal, as they have before, it would mean an end to Android as a free operating system. And licensing fees paid to Microsoft would, of course, be passed on to consumers.

It will be instructive to see how the Apple vs. HTC case proceeds. I’m sure Microsoft would prefer bringing IP claims like this to the device manufacturers and carriers to taking them up with a big fish like Google, and if Apple is successful it may signal to Microsoft that this is a viable path.

What are your thoughts on this possibility? Is it something we should be worried about?

Source: Ryan Gallagher

Swype, the gesture-based virtual keyboard that to date has only been legitimately available to OEMs, just sent beta testing invitations out to Android users who’d previously provided their email address to them.

The beta, starting today, March 5, is limited to a small number of participants but will expand “soon.” It’s a limited feature set compared to the OEM version and will work for devices with HVGA and WVGA displays.

You can register to participate at beta.swype.com.

PortaPayments is a brilliant little idea: it’s an Android app that creates QR codes for PayPal payments. Scanning one of these QR codes takes you to PayPal with the recipient and amount all filled out. Manually approve the payment and you’re done.

This enables mobile payments (create the code on your phone and the customer scans it with their phone) as well as allowing you to use the QR code images as, say, a tip jar on a website, or printed on an invoice.  Lots of possibilities: I can imagine a charity printing up posters or handbills that include PortaPayment codes so people can easily make a donation.

One hitch I found in testing the app is that the PortaPayments app must be used to scan the codes;other barcode scanners will not work correctly. If the developer can address this issue, businesses would be more apt to use it.

The developer has entered the app in the PayPal Developers Challenge. If you like the idea, give him a vote between now and the end of Friday, March 5.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Shopper, a new app from Google Labs, hit the market tonight. This new app should cause the developers of ShopSavvy and other barcode reading shopping apps sweat a little bit.

With Shopper, you can not only scan barcodes but also look up products by taking a picture of them (as you can with Amazon’s app) as well as by voice.

Results include detailed product specs, pricing, and links to sellers.  Products you look up can be saved to a history and shared via email, Twitter, etc.

Google’s intro video for Shopper shows it in action:

Edit: Embedding is disabled on the video, but here’s a link to it.

If you’ve tried Shopper, let us know how you like it. Do other shopping app developers have reason for concern?

A hat tip to AndroidAndMe for the news that the app is available.

A couple weeks ago, we heard the G1 might see an OTA update to Android 2.0 this month. There’s only a couple days left for that to be strictly true, but we’re hearing more rumblings that the upgrade is not far off. 

This time, word comes from the Czech Republic. First, a tweet saying that Czech T-Mobile confirmed the update. Next, a Czech Android fan site reports getting confirmation from T-Mobile that “yes, both the G1 and Pulse will be shortly upgraded to 2.0.” (machine translated).

Still just rumblings, and no timeframe attached this time, but we like where they are headed.

A hat tip to Thomas Riley, who once again broke the news.