New RC33 G1 Firmware Update Begins Rollout

It appears that a new G1 firmware update is currently being rolled out to T-Mobile users. The new update is RC33 and sadly is not the Cupcake update we’ve all been waiting for.

With only a handful of users so far having received the update, it is still not certain what new functionality (if any) and fixes the new RC33 update brings.

“To ensure a great experience with the T-Mobile G1 with Google, customers with these devices will receive an Over the Air (OTA) update to their devices between February 5 and February 15. This OTA will include new system enhancements such as the ability to save pictures or files to file by long-pressing an item, check for system updates, and use the Google Voice Search feature. The OTA will also fix a number of known issues. New G1 activations will receive the OTA up to three days after service has been activated.”

If you’re one of the lucky few to have received the new firmware already, let us know in the comments.

Dell Planning To Launch Android Powered Handset?

According to sources quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Dell are “preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month.”

The news comes just weeks before the Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona, where many cell phone manufacturers are expected to make their big announcements.

The Round Rock, Texas, company has had a group of engineers working on the phones for more than a year from an office in the Chicago area, these people said. They produced prototypes built on Google Inc.’s Android operating system and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile software, these people said.

Sources claim that smartphone protypes included a QWERTY-less touchscreen model and another with a sliding keyboard.

Amazon Prepping Unbox Client for Android

While playing with Amazon’s Unbox service this weekend I noticed something strange. When viewing the Unbox video library through a browser, selecting a video and going to the Download options that my G1 android is listed. I do have it signed up on Amazon MP3 and that works great so that explains how they have the G1’s information. Amazon has my G1 listed as a Video download destination along with a laptop and Tivo of mine. Selecting it gives an error right now which makes sense because there is no Unbox client available in the Market yet. However could this be the next coolest thing with OTA entertainment? I fired off an email to Amazon inquiring further but haven’t received any response back yet.

Amazon Unbox is a service which allows for watching online video of movies and tv shows on demand. The quality is great and the service nearly flawless. If they bring this to the Android platform how many of you will take advantage of this?

G1 costs 10 percent less to make than iPhone

When it comes to the next-gen phone wars, two handsets immediately come to mind: Apple’s iPhone and the G1 from HTC and T-Mobile, the first commercially available phone to run Google’s Android OS.

The G1 retails to new customers for $179, while the basic-model iPhone goes for for $199. Despite those numbers, DowJones, CNN, and iSuppli have discovered, via a virtual teardown, that the G1 is actually 10 percent cheaper per unit to manufacture than Apple’s offering, something smug iPhone users are sure to love.

It costs HTC $144 to make a single G1, whereas the iPhone costs $160 each. What’s not explained is why the G1 sells for twice the cost of the popular iPhone. It could be the 3-megapixel camera or hardware keypad, but the general lack of internal memory (the G1 has 1GB removable, the iPhone has 16GB internal) counters that. Keep in mind that the costs mentioned previously don’t factor in things like marketing and R&D.

While this information probably won’t change anybody’s buying decision, it’s still interesting to see exactly how much of your purchase is subsidized by the carrier and how much is just pure profit.

Android G1 Hits The UK

Today marks the start of the first Android powered handset to be released across the United Kingdom. Android fans queued from 7am at T-Mobile’s Oxford Street store in London to be amoungst the first people to get their hands on the G1.

According to a T-Mobile spokesperson, the first queues began to form at 5am outside their flagship London store. It has also been reported that more than 25,000 people had registered their interest online following the US release last week.

T-Mobile UK managing director Jim Hyde said:

It’s set to revolutionise the way we use the internet on our mobiles.

It’s uniquely built for effortless online communication whether you want to email, text or blog, and with access to some groundbreaking applications on Android Market, the possibilities really are endless.

The T-Mobile G1 handset is available free as part of an 18 month contract with monthly payments of £40.

Android SDK Installation Guide(How To Install Android SDK)

Here’s a quick start installation guide to get you up and running with the Google Android Software Development Kit (SDK). This guide will describe how to install the Android SDK and set up your chosen development environments. If you’ haven’t already done so you can download the Android SDK from the link below, then we can get started.

First you’ll need to download the Android SDK source files:
( http://code.google.com/android/download.html )

System Requirements

In order to first use the Android SDK code and tools for development you will of course need a suitable environment develop from.

Currently the following operating systems are supported:

• Windows XP or Vista
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later (x86 only)
• Linux (tested on Linux Ubuntu Dapper Drake)

You will also need to install a suitable development environment such as:

• EclipseEclipse 3.2, 3.3 (Europa)
  Android Development Tools plugin (optional)
• Other development environments or IDEsJDK 5 or JDK 6 (JRE alone is not sufficient)
  Not compatible with Gnu Compiler for Java (gcj)
  Apache Ant 1.6.5 or later for Linux and Mac, 1.7 or later for Windows

Installing The Android SDK

First you will need to download the Android SDK pack .zip archive, once downloaded find a suitable installation location on your machine and extract the zipped files.

Please note: This installation location will be referred to as $SDK_ROOT from now on through this tutorial

Alternatively you can add /tools to your root path which will prevent the need to specify the full path to the tools directory along with enabling you to run Android Debug Bridge (adb) along with other command line tools.

To add /tools:

Linux

1. Edit the ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc files looking for a line that sets the PATH variable.
2. Add the full path location to your $SDK_ROOT/tools location for the PATH variable.
3. If no PATH line exists you can add the line by typing the following:
4. export PATH=${PATH}:<path to your $SDK_ROOT/tools>

Mac OS X

1. In the home directory locate the .bash_profile and locating the PATH variable add the location to your $SDK_ROOT/tools folder.

Windows XP / Vista

1. Right click on the My Computer icon and select the properties tab.
2. Select the Advanced tab and click the Environment Variables button.
3. In the new dialog box dowble-click on Path (located under System Variables) and type in the full path location to the tools directory.

The Android SDK also requires a suitable development environment to work in, here’s the installation guides for each of the supported environments.

Android Eclipse Plugin (ADT)

If you choose to use the Eclipse IDE as your Android development environment you will have the opportunity to install and run a plug-in called Android Development Tools. ADT comes with a variety of powerful tools and extensions that will make creating, running and debugging your Android applications much easier and faster.

In order to download and install ADT you will first need to configure an Eclipse remote update, this can achieved via the following steps:

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install….
2. In the dialog that appears, select Search for new features to install and press Next.
3. Press New Remote Site.
4. In the resulting dialog box, enter a name for the remote site (e.g. Android Plugin) and enter this as its URL: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/.
5. Press OK.
6. You should now see the new site added to the search list (and checked).
7. Press Finish.
8. In the subsequent Search Results dialog box, select the checkbox for Android Plugin > Eclipse Integration > Android Development Tools and press Next.
9. Read the license agreement and then select Accept terms of the license agreement, if appropriate.
10. Press Next.
11. Press Finish.
12. The ADT plugin is not signed; you can accept the installation anyway by pressing Install All.
13. Restart Eclipse.
14. After restart, update your Eclipse preferences to point to the SDK root directory ($SDK_ROOT):
    Select Window > Preferences… to open the Preferences panel. (Mac OS X: Eclipse > Preferences)
    Select Android from the left panel.
    For the SDK Location in the main panel, press Browse... and find the SDK root directory.
15. Press Apply, then OK

Updating the ADT Plugin

To update the ADT plugin to the latest version, follow these steps:

1. Select Help > Software Updates > Find and Install….
2. Select Search for updates of the currently installed features and press Finish.
3. If any update for ADT is available, select and install.

Alternatively:

1. Select Help > Software Updates > Manage Configuration.
2. Navigate down the tree and select Android Development Tools <version>
3. Select Scan for Updates under Available Tasks.

How-To Use Eclipse To Develop Android Applications

In order to begin development on your Android applications you will first need to create a new Android project and then configure a launch configuration. Once completed you will have the capability to write, run and debug your Android creations.

The following sections below will provide you with the necessary instructions to get you up and running with Android provided you have installed the ADT plugin (as previously mentioned) in your Eclipse environment.

Creating A New Android Project

The Android Development Tools plugins kindly provides a Wizard for setting up new Projects which will allow us to create new Eclipse projects relatively quickly for either new or existing code.

Select File > New > Project

1. Select Android > Android Project, and press Next
2. Select the contents for the project:

• Select Create new project in workspace to start a project for new code. Enter the project name, the base package name, the name of a single Activity class to create as a stub .java file, and a name to use for your application.
• Select Create project from existing source to start a project from existing code. Use this option if you want to build and run any of the sample applications included with the SDK. The sample applications are located in the samples/ directory in the SDK. Browse to the directory containing the existing source code and click OK. If the directory contains a valid Android manifest file, the ADT plugin fills in the package, activity, and application names for you.

Press Finish.

Once completed the ADT plugin will go ahead and create the following files and folders as appropriate for the type of project selected:

• src/ A folder that includes your stub .java Activity file.
• res/ A folder for your resources.
• AndroidManifest.xml The manifest for your project.

Creating A Launch Configuration For Eclipse

In order to be able to run and debug your own Eclipse applications you must first create a launch configuration. Simply, a launch config is used to specify which project to launch, which activity to start and the specific emulation options to use.

To create a launch configuration for the application, please see the following steps:
1. Select Run > Open Run Dialog… or Run > Open Debug Dialog… as appropriate.
2. In the project type list on the left, right-click Android Application and select New.
3. Enter a name for your configuration.
4. On the Android tab, browse for the project and Activity to start.
5. On the Emulator tab, set the desired screen and network properties, as well as any other emulator startup options.
6. You can set additional options on the Common tab as desired.
7. Press Apply to save the launch configuration, or press Run or Debug (as appropriate).

Running and Debugging an Eclipse Application

Once both steps 1 and 2 have been completed and your project and launch configs are up and running you will now be able to run or debug your application.

From the Eclipse main menu, select Run > Run or Run > Debug as appropriate. This command will run or debug the most recently selected application.

To set or change the active launch configuration, use the Run configuration manager, which you can access through Run > Open Run Dialog… or Run > Open Debug Dialog….

Running or debugging the application will trigger the following actions:

• Starts the emulator, if it is not already running.
• Compile the project, if there have been changes since the last build, and installs the application on the emulator.
• Run starts the application.
• Debug starts the application in “Wait for debugger” mode, then opens the Debug perspective and attaches the Eclipse Java debugger to the application.

Developing Android Applications with Other IDEs and Tools

Although it is recommended you use Eclipse with the Android plugin to develop your applications, the SDK also provides tools which will enable you to develop with other IDE’s including intelliJ (alternatively you could just use Eclipse without the plugin).

Creating an Android Project

Bundled with the Android SDK is a program called activityCreatory. activityCreator will generate a number of ‘stub’ files for your chosen project alongside a build file. This can be used to either create an Android project for new code or from existing code.

For Linux and Mac users the Android SDK provides a Python script called activityCreator.py, with Windows users receiving a btach script called activityCreator.bat. The program is used in the same way regardless of operating system.

In order to run activityCreator and create an Android project, follow these steps:

1. In the command line, change to the tools/ directory of the SDK and create a new directory for your project files. If you are creating a project from existing code, change to the root folder of your application instead.
2. Run activityCreator. In the command, you must specify a fully-qualified class name as an argument. If you are creating a project for new code, the class represents the name of a stub class that the script will create. If you are creating a project from existing code, you must specify the name of one Activity class in the package. Command options for the script include:

–out <folder> which sets the output directory. By default, the output directory is the current directory. If you created a new directory for your project files, use this option to point to it.

–ide intellij, which generates IntelliJ IDEA project files in the newly created project
Here’s an example:

/android_linux_sdk/tools$ ./activityCreator.py –out myproject your.package.name.ActivityName
package: your.package.name
out_dir: myproject
activity_name: ActivityName
~/android_linux_sdk/tools$

The activityCreator script generates the following files and directories (but will not overwrite existing ones):

• AndroidManifest.xml The application manifest file, synced to the specified Activity class for the project.
• build.xml An Ant file that you can use to build/package the application.
• src/your/package/name/ActivityName.java The Activity class you specified on input.
• your_activity.iml, your_activity.ipr, your_activity.iws [only with the -ide intelliJ flag] intelliJ project files.
• res/ A directory to hold resources.
• src/ The source directory.
• bin/ The output directory for the build script.

Once complete you will now be able to move your folder wherever you choose for development but you’ll need to bear in mind then you will need to use the adb program in the tools folder in order to send the files to the emulator.

How-To Build An Android Application

Here’s how to use the Ant build.xml file generated by activityCreator to build your application.

1. If you don’t have it, you can obtain Ant from the Apache Ant home page. Install it and make sure it is on your executable path.
2. Before calling Ant, you need to declare the JAVA_HOME environment variable to specify the path to where the JDK is installed.Note: When installing JDK on Windows, the default is to install in the “Program Files” directory. This location will cause ant to fail, because of the space. To fix the problem, you can specify the JAVA_HOME variable like this: set JAVA_HOME=c:\Prora~1\Java\. The easiest solution, however, is to install JDK in a non-space directory, for example: c:\java\jdk1.6.0_02.
3. If you have not done so already, follow the instructions for Creating a New Project above to set up the project.
4. You can now run the Ant build file by simply typing ant in the same folder as the build.xml file for your project. Each time you change a source file or resource, you should run ant again and it will package up the latest version of the application for you to deploy.

How-To Run An Android Application

In order to run a compiled application you will first need to upload the .apk file to the /data/app/ directory in the emulator using the adb tool:

1. Start the emulator (run $SDK_HOME/tools/emulator from the command line)
2. On the emulator, navigate to the home screen (it is best not to have that application running when you reinstall it on the emulator; press the Home key to navigate away from that application).
3. Run adb install myproject/bin/<appname>.apk to upload the executable. So, for example, to install the Lunar Lander sample, navigate in the command line to $SDK_ROOT/sample/LunarLander and type ../../tools/adb install bin/LunarLander.apk
4. In the emulator, open the list of available applications, and scroll down to select and start your application.

Please Note: When installing an activity for the first time you may need to restart the emulator engine in order for the activity to show up in the application launcher or before any other application can call. This is usually down to the fact that the package manager normally only examines manifests completely on emulator start-up.

How-To Attach a Debugger to Your Application

The following section details how to display debug information directly onto the screen (for example CPU usage). It also shows you how to hook up your IDE to debug running applications on the emulator.

The Eclipse plugin automatically attaches a debugger but you can configure other IDE’s to wait on a debugging port by doing the following:

Start the Dalvik Debug Monitor Server (DDMS) tool , which acts as a port forwarding service between your IDE and the emulator.

1. Set optional debugging configurations on your emulator, such as blocking application startup for an activity until a debugger is attached. Note that many of these debugging options can be used without DDMS, such as displaying CPU usage or screen refresh rate on the emulator.
2. Configure your IDE to attach to port 8700 for debugging. We’ve included information higher up on how to set up Eclipse to debug your project.

How-To Configure Your IDE To Attach To The Debugging Port

DDMS will automatically assign a specific debugging port for every virtual machine that it detects on the emulator. You must either attach your IDE to that port, or use a default port 8700 to connect to whatever application is currently selected on the list of discovered virtual machines.

Ideally your IDE will attach to the application running on the emulator, showing its threads and allowing you to suspend them, inspect them, or set breakpoints. If you choose to “Wait for debugger” in the Development settings panel, this will cause the application to run when Eclipse connects therefore you will need to set any breakpoints you want before connecting. If you change the application being debugged or the “Wait for debugger” then the system will kill the selected currently running application.

This can be handy if your application is in a bad state, you can simply go to the settings and toggle the checkbox to kill it.

Debugging Android

Google Android has a fairly extensive set of tools to help you debug your programs:

• DDMS – A graphical program that supports port forwarding (so you can set up breakpoints in your code in your IDE), screen captures on the emulator, thread and stack information, and many other features. You can also run logcat to retrieve your Log messages. See the linked topic for more information.
• logcat – Dumps a log of system messages. The messages include a stack trace when the emulator throws an error, as well as Log messages. To run logcat, see the linked topic. …
  I/MemoryDealer( 763): MemoryDealer (this=0×54bda0): Creating 2621440 bytes heap at 0×438db000
  I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 0
  I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 1
  I/Logger( 1858): getView() requesting item number 2
  D/ActivityManager( 763): Stopping: HistoryRecord{409dbb20 com.google.android.home.AllApps}
  …

• Android Log- A logging class to print out messages to a log file on the emulator. You can read messages in real time if you run logcat on DDMS (covered next). Add a few logging method calls to your code.To use the Log class, you just call Log.v() (verbose), Log.d() (debug), Log.i() (information), Log.w() (warning) or Log.e (error) depending on the importance you wish to assign the log message.
  Log.i(”MyActivity”, “MyClass.getView() — Requesting item number ” + position) You can use logcat to read these messages
• Traceview – Android can save a log of method calls and times to a logging file that you can view in a graphical reader called Traceview. See the linked topic for more information.
• Eclipse plugin – The Eclipse Android plugin incorporates a number of these tools (ADB, DDMS, logcat output, and other functionality). See the linked topic for more information.Debug and Test Device Settings – Android exposes several settings that expose useful information such as CPU usage and frame rate.

Debug and Test Settings on the Device

Android enables you to set a number of options that will make it far easier to test and debug your applications.

To get to the development settings page on the emulator simply go to Dev Tools > Development Settings. This will in turn open up the development settings page with the following options (among others):

• Debug app Selects the application that will be debugged. You do not need to set this to attach a debugger, but setting this value has two effects:

It will prevent Android from throwing an error if you pause on a breakpoint for a long time while debugging.

It will enable you to select the Wait for Debugger option to pause application startup until your debugger attaches (described next).

• Wait for debugger Blocks the selected application from loading until a debugger attaches. This way you can set a breakpoint in onCreate(), which is important to debug the startup process of an Activity. When you change this option, any currently running instances of the selected application will be killed. In order to check this box, you must have selected a debug application as described in the previous option. You can do the same thing by adding waitForDebugger() to your code.
• Immediately destroy activities Tells the system to destroy an activity as soon as it is stopped (as if Android had to reclaim memory). This is very useful for testing the onFreeze(Bundle) / onCreate(android.os.Bundle) code path, which would otherwise be difficult to force. Choosing this option will probably reveal a number of problems in your application due to not saving state.
• Show screen updates Flashes a momentary pink rectangle on any screen sections that are being redrawn. This is very useful for discovering unnecessary screen drawing.
• Show CPU usage Displays CPU meters at the top of the screen, showing how much the CPU is being used. The top red bar shows overall CPU usage, and the green bar underneath it shows the CPU time spent in compositing the screen. Note: You cannot turn this feature off once it is on, without restarting the emulator.
• Show screen FPS Displays the current frame rate. Mostly useful for games to see the overall frame rate they are achieving. Note: You cannot turn this feature off once it is on without restarting the emulator.
• Show background Displays a background pattern when no activity screens are visible. This typically does not happen, but can happen during debugging.

A full review of Google’s Android G1 Phone

The T-Mobile G1 Google smartphone, designed by Google and made by HTC, remains firmly in the shadow of the iPhone—for now. The phone, which goes on sale next week in the US and next month in Britain, was released too early. The HTC hardware and Android OS that powers it lack the polish and depth of even the iPhone 1.0 in most respects. It’s not a bad phone, but the software and hardware needed more time in the oven to bring them to a golden brown crispness.

The G1 would come off much better if it wasn’t competing with the 3G iPhone and iPhone OS 2.1. Admittedly, it’s not clear that Google would have been able to sign up carriers back when the original iPhone was released back in the pre-3G and pre-App Store days, back when Google assembled the three dozen firms that form the Open Handset Alliance, without the iPhone as leverage. While Android’s development predates the release of the original iPhone, phones based on the OS will be pushed onto the market in part because of Apple’s exclusive carrier deals; carriers left out need an alternative.

The G1 is burdened with a lot of issues that have little to do with the phone itself, but we’ll see if we can get past that to explore the general inadequacy of the phone.

The hardware
You notice the G1’s ordinariness as soon as you unpack the phone, which comes wrapped in a small, neatly designed box. The cables are the kind you find accompanying any phone, which somehow makes the G1 appear bland even before use.

Android’s Maps program integrates multiple Google Maps views, and uses the GPS receiver for position.

The G1 guides you through a simple and well-designed setup process for creating accounts and filling in basic parameters. Oddly, despite the inclusion of a WiFi radio, there’s no option to add existing WiFi accounts during setup. Instead, the phone defaults to using T-Mobile’s limited 3G network, available in a few dozen cities right now. (Both data plans for the G1 include unlimited T-Mobile HotSpot use, which includes several thousand locations in the US)

Previews of the phone, produced by reviewers at national publications (like Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal) led me to expect a somewhat better piece of gear than what the G1 turned out to be. The G1 has a slightly rubberized case that’s comfortable in the hand, but the fit and finish isn’t all there.

The phone’s slide-out keyboard doesn’t have a smooth motion—it slams into place. The display portion wobbles slightly and doesn’t lock solidly into open or closed positions. The bottom portion of the phone, when in closed portrait mode, has a slight raise and tilt, and feels exactly right. HTC crammed five buttons and a trackball nubbin into that area.

When butterflied open, the raised and tilted portion winds up on the right side of the keyboard, and irritates while you type. The keyboard is quite nice, with all the letters and numbers available, along with keys for period and the @-sign, plus a dedicated Google search key. It’s quite similar to a one-letter-per-key BlackBerry.

Ports and buttons seem to be scattered around the phone, based on where they happen to fit, rather than having been placed through a well-thought-out design; HTC may have based this on a previous model to produce it so fast. Owners of HTC phones may be used to having volume up/down buttons in a reasonable place (the upper left side of the phone in portrait mode), but the compact USB jack is at the bottom, the camera button at the lower right, and the microSD slot cover is partly hidden when the phone isn’t opened.

There’s no standard headphone jack either, although the unit comes with a set of uncomfortable microphone/earbuds that use HTC’s proprietary USB audio connector to hook into the phone. An ungainly USB-to-2.5mm adapter is available, but not included.

The earbuds have good audio quality when listening to music. There’s a large rectangular bolus in the cable with a thumbnail for adjusting volume, a button for controlling call and music behavior, and a built-in microphone.

In use, the G1 doesn’t feel overly large unless you’re holding an iPhone in the other hand. But the slide-open keyboard makes the G1 more practical for large quantities of typing. As a 100wpm touch-typist, I’m still uncomfortable with the iPhone’s glass keyboard; I could type well on the G1 keyboard immediately.

A built-in speaker produces decent sound and can pump out at extremely high volume. The speaker is on the back, so it’s easy to muffle if you’re playing back YouTube or using it as a speaker phone when resting it on a table.

The out-of-the-box brightness was far too dim, obviously set to about 35 percent of maximum to preserve battery life. At its full brightness, video playback from YouTube was far more attractive.

The built-in three-megapixel camera produces extremely sharp, high-quality photos, even at a range of a few inches. Its auto-focus and exposure adjustments are fantastic. A third-party bar-code scanner had no trouble instantly recognizing and decoding a photo of a UPC printed on a book, for instance. However, the best hardware feature of a smartphone should not be its camera.

A photo taken with the G1’s camera.

The phone comes with a 1 GB microSD card installed, which is used by default to store photos, music, and other items. Plugging the phone into a computer via USB mounts the card, and its contents can be copied without special software. This is a meager amount of storage compared with the iPhone’s base 8 and 16GB models, but a 4GB microSD card can be had for as little as $14; T-Mobile maybe should have opted to eat a few dollars and include that amount of storage.

Although I didn’t have a G1 for long enough to test its battery performance during long phone calls or other typical drains, but the battery life seemed adequate. The unit lasted about a day with heavy data use, downloads, and video playback from YouTube, although that was with the inadequate default brightness.

Google G1 Android mobile phone: review

I had feared that this compromise would result in a chunky, bulky, pocket-bulging device, but I’m pleased to report that the G1 is actually…well, rather nice.

While it’s not a patch on the sleek lines and precise styling of Apple’s iPhone, the G1 doesn’t disgrace itself in the looks department. It has just a few buttons ranged beneath the 3.2in screen, including call answer and hang-up buttons, back and home buttons, and a menu button.

Interestingly, there’s also a BlackBerry-style trackball just in case you don’t fancy prodding the touchscreen to access applications. UK customers will be able to take their pick from black and white handsets, and I personally preferred the white version, which had an almost pearlised finish.

While, despite its best efforts, the G1 still falls short, aesthetically at least, of the iPhone, it goes toe-to-toe with Apple’s all-conquering mobile device when it comes to features.

As you would expect from Google, web browsing is a breeze. There’s one-touch access to a Google web search bar, simply by sliding a finger across the phone’s screen from right to left, as well as whenever your in the browser.

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And while the G1 lacks Apple’s patented”multi-touch” technology – which allows users to make pinching and expanding gestures with their fingers to zoom in and out of web pages and photos on the iPhone’s screen – the G1 retaliates with some tricks of its own, easily enabling users to magnify areas of a website at the touch of a button.

The G1, like the iPhone, lacks support for Flash videos – the sort of video clips we use on our Telegraph website, for instance – because of the type of processor chip used in the phone. And despite having a three-megapixel camera (still a paltry amount considering that Samsung recently launched an eight-megapixel cameraphone, but still a whole megapixel better than the iPhone, nonetheless), the G1, like the iPhone, can’t record videos.

The Android development team hinted that this might be something added in future versions of the device, but building video-capture straight into the handset at launch would have struck the iPhone a blow, and Google has failed to capitalise on that opportunity.

Annoyingly, the G1 lacks a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so I’m afraid you can forget about using your hideously expensive Bose noise-cancelling headphones with it – you’re stuck with HTC’s proprietary earphones.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you’ll be able to not only listen to music on the G1, but buy music on the phone too. That’s because Google has signed a deal with Amazon to provide G1 users with one-click access to the Amazon MP3 store. The store is currently only available in the US, but rumours have been building for a while that it would be rolled out in the UK by the end of this year, and that would certainly tally nicely with the G1’s November launch date.

“Our goal is certainly to make music services available in all regions,” said Andy Rubin, Google’s senior director of mobile platforms. He was also keen to emphasise Android’s scalability and flexibility, calling it a future-proof platform. That’s because users of the G1, and other future Android handsets, will not only benefit from frequent improvements to the phone’s operating system, but also from the ability to add extra programs and software to the device by downloading applications from the Android Market.

This online superstore of additional content is the result of Google’s decision to make Android”open source”, which means anyone can write software for the platform for free.

Although the Android Market is still in the beta, or test, stage, there’s already a healthy selection of really excellent applications that suggest a great deal of innovation in this platform in future.

Early standouts include BreadCrumbz, a mapping program that overlays a route map, say, to a favourite picnic spot or scenic walk, with real photos taken by other users. Ecorio, another application, will calculate the carbon footprint of a journey you’re planning, and suggest other, more environmentally friendly modes of transport.

But my personal favourite was ShopSavvy, a price comparison engine. You use the G1’s camera to take a photo of a barcode on, say, a book or CD; the ShopSavvy software then translates that into a universal code, and runs a web search to find the cheapest place to buy that item. It can find the cheapest online stores, as well as give you a list, unprompted, of shops in your area selling that item, by using the G1’s built-in GPS.

Google’s G1: First Impressions

Google’s new G1 phone announced today is the first real competitor to the iPhone. Like Apple’s product, it’s a serious handheld computer with a powerful new operating system (called Android) and a clever touch-based user interface. Like the iPhone, it’s likely to be a major new platform for third-party software. But it’s also very different, and may appeal to different buyers.

The phone, expected to be the first of many to use the Android operating system, was largely designed by Google, and was built by HTC of Taiwan. It will be sold in the U.S. starting next month by T-Mobile, for $179 with a two-year contract.

Here are some first impressions of the G1, based on some experience with a prototype. This isn’t a full review; that will come later, when I’ve had a chance to use a more finished device.

Most importantly, the G1 complements its touch screen with a physical keyboard, the lack of which has made the iPhone a non-starter for some users. The G1’s keyboard is revealed when you slide open its screen. The keys are a bit flat, and you have to reach your right thumb around a bulging portion of the phone’s body to type, but it’s a real keyboard. And there’s also a BlackBerry-like trackball that supplements the touch screen navigation. I found typing on this keyboard to be OK, but not great.

A second big feature, or limitation, of the G1 — depending on your point of view — is that it is tightly tied to Google’s web-based email, contacts and calendar programs. In fact, you must have a Google (GOOG) account to use the phone, and can only synchronize the phone’s calendar and address book with Google online services. Unlike the iPhone, it doesn’t work with Microsoft Exchange, and it can’t physically be synced with a PC-based calendar or contacts program, like Microsoft Outlook.

So, if your world already revolves around Google services, you may find that the G1 fits like a glove. If not, you may be disappointed.

Also, like the iPhone, the G1 has a download service for third-party programs, called Market. I downloaded a couple of simple Market programs and they worked fine.

The G1 won’t win any beauty contests with its Apple (AAPL) rival. It’s stubby and chunky, nearly 30% thicker and almost 20% heavier than the iPhone. It’s a bit narrower — more like a standard phone than a “smart phone” — and longer, but has a somewhat smaller screen.

Still, it feels pretty good in the hand when closed, although I found it more awkward when opened.

But the software is slick. Programs appear in a virtual drawer you slide open via a tab at the bottom of the screen, and notifications of new messages and the like can be read by sliding the top bar of the screen down. The screen and software were quick and responsive.

The web browser is based on the same open-source technology as the iPhone’s, but works differently. You can view a portion of a page, and use a zoom control and finger-dragging to see the rest, or you can view the whole page in miniature, as on the iPhone. In the latter mode, however, you can’t simply use Apple’s technique of tapping or “pinching” to zoom in on a portion of a page. You must move around a virtual lens to pick out a part of the page on which to focus.

There are two email programs: one for Google’s Gmail, another for all other email services. There’s an instant messaging program, that works with multiple services — not just Google’s. And, as on the iPhone, there are programs for using Google Maps and Google’s YouTube video service. The G1’s Google Maps program has a feature lacking in the iPhone version: photographic street views of some locations.

The G1 has a couple of other things the iPhone omits: copy and paste functionality and a so-called MMS program, which sends photos to other phones without using email. Its camera is higher-resolution than the iPhone’s, but, like Apple’s, doesn’t record video.

It also gives you far more flexibility in organizing your desktop, or home screen, than the iPhone, or almost any phone I’ve seen. In addition to placing icons for programs there, you can place everything from individual contacts, music playlists, folders, web pages, and more.

The G1’s multimedia capabilities are less polished and complete than the iPhone’s. There’s a very basic music player, and a built-in version of Amazon’s MP3 download service that works fine. But the G1 lacks a built-in video player — you have to download one from the third-party software store. Also, you cannot use standard stereo headphones with the G1. You need special ones, or an adapter.

And it lacks the iPhone’s ability to change the orientation of a web page or photo by just turning the phone. You also can’t move through groups of photos by just “flicking,” as on the iPhone.

The G1 also has much less memory than the iPhone. The base $199 iPhone comes with 8 gigabytes sealed in, but the G1 comes with just a 1 gigabyte memory card. Its maximum memory, if you buy a bigger card, is 8 gigabytes, while the iPhone can be purchased (for $299) with twice that.

T-Mobile is claiming similar talk time to that of the iPhone, but, unlike Apple’s product, the G1 has a removable battery.

Finally, a word about networks. In the U.S., the G1 will initially only be available on T-Mobile, whose high-speed 3G network will be up and running in many fewer cities than those of its larger rivals, AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ). Like the iPhone, the G1 does have Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

In sum, the G1 is a powerful, versatile device which will offer users a real alternative in the new handheld computing category the iPhone has occupied alone.

Meet the T-Mobile G1

Uh, c’mon guys — this is a little ridiculous. Now typically, you want to keep this sort of thing under wraps until the day of your event, but it seems like the cats and kittens at T-Mobile can’t contain themselves. Yes, you’re looking at the first official product shot of the G1 Android phone ever. Enjoy it.

Update: TmoNews has just uncovered new specs and info on the phone. Here’s what they’ve got so far: the phone is 4.6 x 2.16 x 0.63 inches, weighs 5.6 ounces, features a 480 x 320 HVGA display, sports 3G (obviously), GPS, has a 3.1-megapixel camera, supports up to 8GB of memory (though no format is mentioned), and will feature 5 hours of talktime with 130 hours of standby. Strangely, the phone won’t do video capture (what?), won’t have stereo Bluetooth, will require a Gmail account, and won’t be sold at stores outside of a 2-5 mile radius of T-Mobile’s 3G coverage areas. That last bit sounds a little odd to us, but we’re guessing a lot of the functionality of this device will be shot in non-3G regions.

TMobile G1 Phone, Google’s Android-Powered Cell Phone, Unveiled

NEW YORK — The first phone that harnesses Google Inc.’s ambition to make the Internet easy to use on the go was revealed Tuesday, and it looks a lot like an iPhone.

T-Mobile USA showed off the G1, a phone that, like Apple Inc.’s iPhone, has a large touch screen. But it also packs a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google’s e-mail and mapping programs.

T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G1 for $179 with a two-year contract. The device hits U.S. stores Oct. 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year.

The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. By launch, that will be 21 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.

In other areas, people will be able to buy the phone from T-Mobile’s Web site. The phone does work on T-Mobile’s slower data network, but it’s optimized for the faster networks. It can also connect at Wi-Fi hotspots.

The data plan for the phone will cost $25 per month on top of the calling service, at the low end of the range for data plans at U.S. wireless carriers. And at $179, the G1 is $20 less than the least expensive iPhone in the U.S.

Android, the free software powering the G1, is a crucial building block in Google’s efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers. The company believes it eventually might make more money selling ads that get shown on mobile devices than on PCs, a channel that will generate about $20 billion in revenue this year.

Both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also are investing heavily in the mobile market in hopes of preventing Google from extending the dominance it enjoys in searches initiated on PCs.