iLuvAndroid – Feeding your Android Addiction with news, reviews and guides

There has been a bit of drama happening over the last few days over at the XDA forum and from Google themselves. Cyanogen has revealed that he was issued a “Ceast and Desist” letter from Google about his immensely popular CyanogenMOD for Android mobile phones.

As most people perceive that the Android platform itself is Open Source, not everything is cut and dry. For example, while Google is happy to create APIs (Application Programming Interface) so that other applications can talk to services just like Google Maps, Google Mail, Google Talk, YouTube and so forth, the programs themselves are not explicitly Open Source and thus free to distribute.

Where does Cyanogen and other ROM Developers fit into this? Installing a custom ROM from any developer to date also pre-packages Google Talk, YouTube, Google Voice, Google Search, Android Market and more which are not available to freely distribute. The only exception to this is Google Maps which can be downloaded via the Android Market.

Having any of these applications and certain libraries thus makes the ROM illegal to distribute and that’s part of the reason why Google are a bit upset. It has been rumoured that the main reason for the Cease and Desist letter was that Cyanogen compiled and released the Donut version of the Android Market before Google was ready. Not only that, the latest Experimental Builds from Cyanogen were built from the latest source code available and thus was actually the Donut build (Android 1.6).

Being built on the latest Android 1.6 version not only meant that many enthusiasts were the first to experience the multitude of improvements but also caused some issues with developers who have yet to code their own application to be compatible with Donut. For those who have owned an Android device, many will remember the teething problems from many applications after upgrading from Android version 1.0/1.1 to 1.5 aka Cupcake.

The situation is a lot worse for those running a custom “Hero” build as they contain a lot of propriety and closed sourced applications such as Teeter, QuickOffice, HTC_IME (the HTC version of the virtual keyboard), HTC_Music and more, all being totally illegal in doing so.

Google had this to say on the matter on their developer blog:

Lately we’ve been busy bees in Mountain View, as you can see from the recent release of Android 1.6 to the open-source tree, not to mention some devices we’re working on with partners that we think you’ll really like. Of course, the community isn’t sitting around either, and we’ve been seeing some really cool and impressive things, such as the custom Android builds that are popular with many enthusiasts. Recently there’s been some discussion about an exchange we had with the developer of one of those builds, and I’ve noticed some confusion around what is and isn’t part of Android’s open source code. I want to take a few moments to clear up some of those misconceptions, and explain how Google’s apps for Android fit in.

Everyone knows that mobile is a big deal, but for a long time it was hard to be a mobile app developer. Competing interests and the slow pace of platform innovation made it hard to create innovative apps. For our part, Google offers a lot of services — such as Google Search, Google Maps, and so on — and we found delivering those services to users’ phones to be a very frustrating experience. But we also found that we weren’t alone, so we formed the Open Handset Alliance, a group of like-minded partners, and created Android to be the platform that we all wished we had. To encourage broad adoption, we arranged for Android to be open-source. Google also created and operates Android Market as a service for developers to distribute their apps to Android users. In other words, we created Android because the industry needed an injection of openness. Today, we’re thrilled to see all the enthusiasm that developers, users, and others in the mobile industry have shown toward Android.

With a high-quality open platform in hand, we then returned to our goal of making our services available on users’ phones. That’s why we developed Android apps for many of our services like YouTube, Gmail, Google Voice, and so on. These apps are Google’s way of benefiting from Android in the same way that any other developer can, but the apps are not part of the Android platform itself. We make some of these apps available to users of any Android-powered device via Android Market, and others are pre-installed on some phones through business deals. Either way, these apps aren’t open source, and that’s why they aren’t included in the Android source code repository. Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it’s done with the best of intentions.

I hope that clears up some of the confusion around Google’s apps for Android. We always love seeing novel uses of Android, including custom Android builds from developers who see a need. I look forward to seeing what comes next!

Cyanogen has recently said on Twitter that he is planning to release a CM 4.2 version of his ROM which will be the first “bare-bones” ROM is his to be made available. This basically translates as his latest ROM will still be based on the source code Google releases, but will have none of the offending, closed source applications. This however is more difficult than simply stripping out the offending applications to begin with but iLuvAndroid will be covering that in detail in another post.

Just to note, it has been stated as well that Cyanogen is in no way competing with Google about the Android platform and was open in working out a resolution to the issue. It will be interesting to see and hear what the developers think about this and what their next steps will be.

Popularity: 67% [?]

The Guardian is one of the UK’s premier newspapers when it comes to covering all aspects of the news. Developer James Hugman and Future Platforms have teamed up together to help bring such content to the Android masses and has released an application called “Guardian Anywhere”.

The concept is simple, to deliver you all of the Guardian’s content to you on your handset, whenever you want, where ever you are. What differs though from other applications is that instead of needing a constant connection to the internet via WiFi or 3G, Guardian Anywhere downloads the whole content first before presenting it.

This concept has pro’s and con’s as the content offered by the Guardian is vast and requires a long time to load completely, something that the application even tells you in its disclaimer. Even via WiFi content can take a considerable amount of time to download to your handset as for example it took 10+ minutes before all the content was loaded during reviewing.

Interface & Userability

Once it was loaded the interface is clean yet uninspiring as it just feels that its lacking polish throughout. Straight away you can see the large volume of content which is available as well from the Guardian and everything is listed in a presentable manner with distinguished categories.

Images within the content itself are quite large and of high quality making it perfect if  you were to use them as a wallpaper. However, I would have liked to see a lower resolution image in place instead to save on storage and bandwidth use as this would save time on downloading the content immensely. If one wanted to use the image as a wallpaper then an option to click-hold on the image which prompts a download of a higher resolution image would suffice instead.

Browsing around the vast amount of content is easy enough as is subscribing to content to suit your needs. On the main screen just go to All Stories and then press the Menu button and then Manage Tags. This will bring up the feed list where you can simply tick or untick content relevant to you.

Features

One of the features available though to make the downloading pain a bit more bearable is the ability to subscribe to parts of the Guardian that you actually want to read so subsequential use of the application becomes faster. Also you can even schedule when the application begins to download the content, so setting it to download in the morning whilst your mobile is still on charge and before you wake up is a good idea. However I do not know when the content itself gets updated in the morning, so setting it too early could infact just load up old news.

Guardian Anywhere displays images picked by the newspaper itself with good quality and you can even save it to your mobile or set it as a wallpaper which is a neat feature. The ability to select items to put into a “Saved Articles” folder for later viewing is a good idea as is being able  to search content via tags.

Thoughts

Being a new application it hold much promise and the ability to pre-load content before viewing can help in areas with low or no signal. Even if content has yet to be loaded, it can be done on demand instead which is something most Android users are used to. With WiFi enabled it took well over 10 minutes for me to load the content into Guardian Anywhere which makes me question if the content is optimised enough yet for mobile use, especially those with a limited data plan.

The interface still requires some polish as I feel that the logo itself could be more appealing along with the icons. In the world where everyone thinks the Apple iPhone is the standard for style and user interface, Guardian Anywhere does not quite reach such levels. It is however still early in its development phase.

In all, once the content is loaded it is a good and usable news reader dedicated to the Guardian Newspaper. With some speed optimisations for 3G, which should be the lowest denominator on a mobile, and some polish this application could go far. If you’re a fan of the Guardian then its worth checking out, its totally free to use too!

Guardian Anywhere

Rating: Good

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Popularity: 70% [?]

Annoyed with the HTC G1 mobile because incoming calls go to voicemail before you can answer the phone? Its a common issue where many calls are missed because the default timeout is 15 seconds which is too short for many people. This is a guide to easily change the time before your mobile diverts the call to voicemail from anything from 5 to 30 seconds.

Just follow these steps:

1. Enter *#61*11# and press Send/Talk on your phone.
2. Write down the number your calls are currently forwarded to. This is your voicemail deposit number.
3. Decide how long you want the phone to ring in 5 second intervals. The maximum time is 30 seconds. I have mine set at 25 seconds.
4. Now enter **61*[number from step 2]*11*[number from step 3, use 2 digits]# and press Send/Talk.

Example: **61*441234567890*11*25#     Then press Send/Talk

This will now change your default ring time before voicemail answers to 25 seconds. To test if it was successful, enter *#61*11# and press Send/Talk for the new value. Hope this helps!

Popularity: 87% [?]

Vodafone has announced that it will be launching the HTC Tattoo in October next month and exclusively in black! The HTC Tattoo was designed to be a lower-end Android powered mobile phone and thus becoming more affordable for everyone to use. That said, it is still pretty full featured, containing a 3.2 auto-focus megapixel camera, WiFi, Bluetooth, Quadband support, MicroSD support and a 2.8 Capacitive Touch screen.

Below is the official press release.

VODAFONE UK ANNOUNCES EXCLUSIVE HTC TATTOO

Following last week’s announcement of the Nokia E72, LG GM750 and Sony Ericsson XPERIA™ X2, Vodafone UK will be ranging another innovative smartphone exclusive. The new Android-powered HTC Tattoo is a smartphone which will keep you entertained and up to date wherever you are.

The HTC Tattoo, available exclusively in black on Vodafone UK, lets you customise your own mobile experience using the latest HTC Sense technology. It delivers lots of the features of the enormously successful HTC Magic at an affordable price, for example, you can create shortcuts to your favourite internet sites, social networks, games, widgets and applications – and there’s an amazing opportunity to personalise your phone further with thousands more applications and widgets available for download in the simple to use Android Market. Android also gives you quick and easy access to popular Google services such as Google Maps, Google Mail and Google Search as well as favourites like YouTube.

Take your favourite snaps with the 3.2 megapixel camera with sharp focus, and view them on the HTC Tattoo’s high resolution screen or upload them to your social network via the handset’s superfast internet connection. And you are able to alter the look of your phone further with the unique covers that you can design yourself and purchase, or simply choose one from popular cover designs available.

Key features of the exclusive black HTC Tattoo include:

• 3.2MP Camera
• Android technology
• FM Radio and MP3 player
• 2.8″ Touchscreen
• Unique personalised covers

Available in October, customers can pre-register for the Vodafone exclusive HTC Tattoo here: http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-phone/htc-tattoo

No word on prices and the price plans available for a free handset but HTC are throwing their weight behind the dynamic and impressive Android platform and with the HTC Tattoo, it should reach a wider audience beyond the currently released HTC G1, Magic, MyTouch and Hero devices.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Cyanogen has released a new version of his Experimental Build which has fixed the Camcorder audio issues an updated many other modules. Below is the changelog!

Download Cyanogen Experimental Build 4.11.1

—- v4.1.11.1
* Fix the bad signature on Phone.apk that was causing problems if you had wiped before installing
* Added another 1 to the version number

—- v4.1.11
* Audio recording (camcorder) is fixed. ** DO NOT use the current volume hacks with this- they will break recording on Donut! **
* Fixed crash in Market notifications menu
* New Busybox + xbin stuff
* Updated Browser patches from Loccy
* Updated kernel
* More scheduler tweaks
* Removed the nasty/scary logging from HTC_IME
* Error checking during A2SD startup
* Fixed free memory calculation so swap is taken into account (thanks |Rain|)
* Fixed signature on the FilePicker apk
* Included new fix_permissions script
* A bunch of other small things

Popularity: 14% [?]

One of the criticisms of the HTC G1 handset was that the audio volume and quality was not as loud as other handsets in the market. The speaker itself isn’t of the highest quality but the Android Community wanted to squeeze as much as possible from it. A project then came along to improve the audio quality and volume and hence AudioHack was born.

Currently released as version 2, it includes revised files as the developer Meltus discovered he could manipulate the equaliser settings directly.  As you can see from the title screenshot there are multiple versions available for you to choose from, each with unique properties. Here’s a rundown of what each version does, direct from the developer.

- V1 revision 2
Due to it not being distorted at all anyway, I added the compressor and made it slightly louder. not a lot has been changed here.

- V2 revision 2
Completely distortion-less! The most popular version due to it’s loud volume and good sound quality. Now being used pre-built into many custom ROMs.

- V3 revision 2
Not sure about this one. Still very distorted (due to it’s volume) and it’s now slightly quieter than the original v3. Some of you may like this version, some of you may hate it.

- V6 revision 2
Managed to retain the bass whilst removing some of the distortion. I also lowered the volume slightly.

TIP!!! – Have the volume set 3 below maximum to get the best sound out of this version. At this level it sounds pretty good.

The most popular version is V2 Revision 2 (aka V7) which offers a great balance of volume and quality through the loudspeaker and in-call volume too. So popular it has become for example, many ROM chefs have included it into their own custom ROMs as standard. It really does make a difference and the best way to see if it has is to have some music playing while you’re applying the changes. The music track will skip and then you can hear the changes straight away. As a side note, NeoBlade of eMagi.co.uk designed the interface for the application too and will continue to offer support for AudioHack in the future!

Available for £1.50 from the Android Market you can either buy it there or visit the official XDA Thread for more details.

AudioHack

Please note that this application only works for mobiles which has been rooted.

Rating: Highly Recommended

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Popularity: 16% [?]

With the recent news that iTweet is now free, now is a good time to check out the popular twitter client if you haven’t just yet. Using the application is simplicity itself just enter your credentials to log in and you are presented with the main interface. From here you can have an overview of all tweets, messages, your profile, favourites, your replies and your own tweets.

To send a tweet you press the Menu button and more options become available to you, to either customise the look or to follow users and look at the public timeline. iTweet can also notify you whenever new tweets occur and you can set the time interval for how often it will check for new tweets. The default setting is every 20 minutes however setting it to a longer interval can save you battery life.

In all iTweet is a solid Twitter client and now that its totally free to download it should attract more users than ever before. If it is enough however to dethrone the current leading twitter client, Twidroid, only time will tell.

Rating: Highly Recommended

iTweet

Popularity: 35% [?]

Going head to head with Twitdroid, which now has both a free and Pro version, iTweet was one of the first Twitter clients on Android with an impressive interface and features. Previously a paid application, it has now totally free, so if you haven’t tried out this application before then now is your chance!

News has though has been hard to swallow for some users who have paid for the application, with no news of refunds available or not. Certainly I don’t know if there is anything within the Terms and Conditions of the Android Market to protect clients who have bought applications and games, but this is good news for everyone else.

Download it by searching in the Android Market or use your barcode scanner on the image below and be sure to check out our iTweet Review!

iTweet Client

Popularity: 9% [?]

Nebudroid is an application that I stumbled upon which allows you to use your Android phone to control videogames on your PC. His video impressively demonstrates what is possible with the application, such as playing a PC racing game with the phone as the steering wheel to control not only the steering but the acceleration, braking and gearshifts. In his next demonstration he uses a NES Emulator playing Super Mario Bros 3 with his HTC Hero as a NES controller pad!

Here’s what the author Asier Arranz has to say about his application.

Nebudroid is a funny way to interact with PC games and simulators using the accelerometer and the new multitouch capabilities. You can drive a car using the phone as a steering wheel (with gears for manual transmission), you can play Mario with a NES controller, or you can jump with the mobile in the pants pocket and Mario will move with you.

The software is tested in a HTC Hero, and soon will be tested in more Android devices. The software will be continuosly updated, and I’m working in a improved version that has more new features.

Be sure to check out the video below to see how well it works as a controller. There is a slight bit of input lag as expected but the Nebudroid is still in a very early development phase.

Source: http://www.nebudroid.com/

Popularity: 9% [?]

Just added a new guide on how to Root your G1 mobile phone! I will add more screenshots in the future to make it even easier for people to follow but I hope this guide will work for you as it did for me. More guides will be on their way along with how to use ADB, Nandroid, the Recovery Image, HardSPL/DangerSPL, scripts and much more!

If there are any other guides that you wish to see featured or written, then feel free to drop a comment and I will have a look at it in the future. For now though feel free to browse the Guides page to see what there is to come!

Popularity: 5% [?]