Android 1.0 Early Look Review
Martin (dzo) has been working (tirelessly it seems) on his port of Android to the HTC Vogue (Sprint Touch, among other names), (Tmobile’s G1 is not the first phone out with Android, it’s merely the first officially endorsed by Google) and it’s coming along nicely. Here are my thoughts so far:
(more after the break)
Since the Touch doesn’t have a physical keyboard (or many actual buttons) Martin has had to get creative. He has incorporated an onscreen keyboard which is ok, not great but better than nothing. The buttons are mapped as follows (currently):
- Volume Up – Back
- Volume Down – Men
- Camera key – Keyboard
- End – Power
- Call – Call
- Camera button seems to be unused
Android itself is pretty snappy. Way faster than WinMo. Apps launch fast. Touching the screen brings instant results. Browsing pages is snappy too.
The ‘desktop’ is pretty call. It has multiple desktops just like Linux on a computer. Slide your finger left or right and the screen will move with you. On the right ‘screen’ is a search box. The left is currently empty but I’m sure you could find something to put there.
Moving icons around is a snap. Hold the icon and after a short wait, drag it to where you want it.
The menu (start menu if you will) has quite a few icons on it and is at the bottom center of the screen. Tapping it is way easier then trying to hit a small area in a corner somewhere.
Overall, its turning into something that can be incredibly useful, especially for a power user like me.
Developers, take heed, many people will jump ship from the iPhone and WinMo phones to an Android phone once one is developed that isn’t already years old (the G1 is reportedly over two years old already). Perhaps the Touch Pro and Touch HD will be these phones. Start developing now and be ready when the surge hits. Here’s my shopping list of needed apps:
- SSH client
- SFTP/FTP client
- Text editor with SFTP/FTP capabilities that supports HTML/CSS/JS/PHP
- PHP IDE would be awesome
- VOIP client
- Multi-protocol IM client
- IRC client
That’s it for now. If you have a Sprint Touch or HTC Vogue, get an easy installer from http://www.myhtcphone.com today.
mrcelo wrote:
Hi,
How make android running on htc touch omap850 elf0100 ? The cab install ok, when I run haret just a white screen after message jumping kernel.
Tks a lot
Posted on 14-Oct-08 at 5:44 am | Permalink
Bruno wrote:
I’m the same problem.
[]‘s
Posted on 11-Nov-08 at 11:00 am | Permalink
Frazer wrote:
Me too. Has anyone found what the problem is?
Posted on 18-Dec-08 at 8:13 am | Permalink
admin wrote:
The problem is the port only works on the HTC Vogue. If you want to get it working on a different device, then start the porting process or do a search to see if one has already been started. Check out http://www.myhtcphone.com as a starting place.
Posted on 23-Dec-08 at 1:30 pm | Permalink