How To’s

Always wish you could fly around the world on your Nexus One? Me too. Well we can finally do just that. Google Earth for Android is now available for download for any 2.1 Android device (AKA Nexus One or a Android 2.1 Custom ROM on other phone). Just head to the Market for the download! Enjoy! UPDATE: Some readers have reported that it doesn’t work on 2.1 ROMs on other phones, anyone else try it and have it work? UPDATE 02.24.10: Thanks to Jeff from Droidsector, here is the Google Earth for all 2.0.1 Devices (aka the Droid).

So it turns out AT&T isn’t shunning Android after all. They have just officially announced that they will be carrying the new Motorola Backflip for $100 after mail-in rebate for new customers. The Backflip is a Blur based Android device (similar to the CLIQ), with a unique opening design; the screen is on the back side, hence back flip. Strange, right? But not a bad concept I guess, it’s a struggle to be different in form factor nowadays so kudos to them for trying, at least. The phone’s specs are as follows: 528mhz Processor 256Mbs of RAM 5.0MP Camera with

Again a big thinks to the devs of XDA-Developers and more importantly in this case, Paul from Modaco. Sir Paul there is already hard at work with porting the HTC Desire ROM with all it’s Sense UI goodness to the Nexus One. According to Paul, everything is working rather well except for the FM Radio (it is suspected that he might need the Radio firmware from the Desire to get that to work, but not a big deal to me): Sense UI works (including all widgets) Flash 10.1 works in the Browser Multitouch works Camera works Trackball works Live Wallpapers

So according to BGR (and an AT&T source there), the Sony Xperia X10 will definitely be hitting AT&T. The phone will be available with a 2 year contract as soon as April-May and the price is expected to be $199 or less. AT&T users excited much for a feature Android phone? Or more excited about the Dell Mini 5? And also, does this mean no X10 on T-Mobile? Or will they release it on AT&T and then the unlocked version will have T-Mobile 3G? That would be smart of them… Source

So the device is actually one we’ve heard of already, but the news here is that instead of running Moblin, the LG GW990 will be skipping it to run MeeGo. In case you missed it, MeeGo is the new joint OS created by the merging of Maemo from Nokia and Moblin from Intel. We still have no clue what MeeGo will look like or what parts of each OS they will take to combine into one, but this does signify that LG was at least excited enough about the MeeGo OS to scrap Moblin and announce MeeGo publicly.The GW990 is

For everyone using an N900, especially listen up. Nokia and Intel have co-announced that they will be combining Maemo (Nokia) and Moblin (Intel), their two respective open source OS’s, into one OS called MeeGo. These two giants have decided that they can take the best of both OS’s and combine them to make a much better OS over the coming year. What does this mean? We’ll were not sure either as the announcement was pretty vague on details, but what we can probably assume is that this means no more Maemo or Moblin coming out (and no Maemo 6, I

You probably don’t recognize the name Kolbysoft, but you will most likely recognize their product if you use Android. They make the Steel browser that can be downloaded from the Market, one of the first 3rd party browsers for the Android OS. Well, Skyfire, makers of the Skyfire browser, one of the first full flash browsers for the Windows Mobile and Symbian OS’s, has decided to purchase Kolbysoft in order to get their foot in the door for their browser on the Android OS. As someone who has used Windows Mobile phones in the past, Skyfire was my favorite browser.

So thanks to a reader, here are some new screenshots of Symbian v3 and v4 apparently (the newest versions of the Symbian OS). Symbian v3: Symbian V4:

So the new Dell Android device called the Dell Mini 5 has officially been pictured. Here are the rumored specs: 1Ghz Snapdragon Processor 5 inch Capacitive Screen 5.0MP Camera with Flash WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS AT&T’s 3G just got approved with the device in the FCC Take a look for yourself: Not a bad decision for someone on AT&T, right? Wonder if there will other carrier versions… Anyone want one? Check out the rest of the pics and a quick video of the phone booting up. Source

So noone is sure how real this may be, but apparently some devs did some ROM searching and found some interesting information inside a particular ROM: # begin build properties # autogenerated by buildinfo.sh ro.build.id=FRE65C ro.build.display.id=htc_scorpion-userdebug 2.2 FRE65C eng.xxxxx.20100206 test-keys ro.build.version.incremental=26741 ro.build.version.sdk=8 ro.build.version.codename=REL ro.build.version.release=2.2 ro.build.date=Sat Feb 6 13:42:06 CST 2010 ro.build.date.utc=1264645720 ro.build.type=userdebug ro.build.user=u40000 ro.build.host=builder00101 ro.build.tags=test-keys ro.product.model=HTC Olympian ro.product.brand=generic ro.product.name=htc_scorpion ro.product.device=scorpion ro.product.board=cortex1.5ghz ro.product.cpu.abi=armeabi-va8c ro.product.cpu.abi2=armeabi ro.product.manufacturer=HTC ro.product.locale.language=mdpi ro.product.locale.region= ro.board.platform=qsd8672 # ro.build.product is obsolete; use ro.product.device ro.build.product=scorpion # Do not try to parse ro.build.description or .fingerprint ro.build.description=1.47.3.2 CL2***** test-keys ro.build.changelist=2***** ro.build.modelid=DF4732*** ro.build.fingerprint=generic/htc_scorpion/scorpion/scorpion:2.2/FRE65C/26741:userdebug/test-keys keyguard.no_require_sim=1 # end build properties # # system.prop for scorpion #

PocketNow released pictures and a video of the new HTC Incredible (AKA the CMDA Bravo for Verizon). The specs we are being told are as follows: Snapdragon 1ghz Processor 256MBs of RAM Android 2.1 with Sense UI Optical Mouse Pointer Dual LED Flash 3.7″ AMOLED screen (WVGA) The phone was also found to be running on Verizon’s frequencies so it is most likely headed there. So is the Nexus One or the Incredible coming out first?

Following the Nexus One update for pinch zooming, called Android 2.1-Update 1, Google has announced that they will be releasing this same update to all of the manufacturers of Android devices shortly. Now, this doesn’t mean that you can expect the update on your G1 within a week etc. it just means that Google is releasing the update to the manufacturers soon. It will still be up to the manufacturers when and if certain phones get this update (and let’s not forget that some of them have their own UIs on top of Android that would need to be updated