I would like to write a story About Android Phones, I would like to add into the mix HTC and then add some finely chopped T-Mobile to that mix with the idea to come out with the HTC Hero running Android 2.1 with all the trimmings and also easy enough for a normal customer to complete right? Without ruining the story, if it was possible to go back in time – I would be sitting here right now with an iPhone 3GS  - yes you heard that right….

In the beginning…

I had read about the Android offering Turn by Turn maps and I was in the market for a new mobile phone, this time I was happy to go on contract BUT I wanted the shorted time, none of this locking me in for 2 years – a lot can happen right. The iPhone come at a cost and then a monthly fee but along to the other store and we had the HTC Hero which came free, had a 18 month contract and gave me 800 Minutes a month and unlimited everything else. I went off and looked this phone up, seemed pretty news and good review all around. Now my mind worked like this – given that the HTC Hero was Very new when I got it – I imagined it would be supported and updated for some time and I never thought for one second that the phone in June 2010 would be cast aside by HTC and T-Mobile for newer and better things – GASP…

The never ending promised upgrade

Never a month went by that a blog somewhere would proclaim that 2.0/2.1 was here “the next month” and this started in January and carried on all the way up to now – July 2010. Each month I was tempted to Root my phone and upgrade to 2.1 but I lived in the hope that it would come “soon” and also I was afraid I might brick my phone. The phone had some faults such as telling me when I was on wireless that in fact there was no internet – yet there was.

My First go at updating

I tried to follow a post on how to create a “Goldcard” – this involves patching the SD Card but when I then progressed to the next stage (to flash a older Rom on there) – it would always fail telling me that it could not see the HTC Hero. I left it alone – thinking I had done it all wrong.

The official Part 1 of the update

The update they send you is a small patch which prepares the phone for the full 2.1 Update. I set my phone forward one year to activate the check up, it found and downloaded an update and rebooted the phone. It started to install and got half way through – then it had the Triangle of death:

If you press the Home button and the Power – you get a DOS Looking screen – this was almost saying it had trouble with the Rom version installed. I tried wiping the phone and formatting the SD card but alas – got stuck every single time.

Call to T-Mobile

Now you would expect that if I called the people who sold me the phone, they would know what to do right? I got the initial agent who took all my details and was stumped at what I was saying – an update for a phone, is this even possible? Eventually she passed me through to the Support team. The First problem is they had no idea what an HTC Hero was, only when I said G2 Touch (which is exactly the same thing) did they progress to “There is an update, we never knew about this” – wow, wow and WOW!!!

I got them to take out one of there HTC Hero phones and I walked them through how to get the update (Set the date forward) and then show them the error screen and even what key to press to show the error listing. It comes to something when a customer knows more about supporting there phones then the Support section do right? The promised they would call me back – never mentioned which damm year though !!

Taking matters into my own hand

When I got some time, I booted my VMWare Windows XP Pro SP3 machine up, plugged in the Phone via USb, Installed HTC Sync (to the get the drivers) and then tried to flash the proper t-mobile firmware (one that was already on the phone) as I heard this works but it failed. I then go another generic one – and this worked. Once the phone rebooted, I noticed a few things – one been that there was NO T-Mobile branding.

Once the phone started, it told me that there was an update – this downloaded and rebooted the phone, no Triangle as above. Once we started again – it told me there was another update – I left this one running (took a while to download and even longer to install). Once we had finished, I was the proud owner of a HTC hero running 2.1 with no T-Mobile branding. Live wallpaper did not work (were not even there) and some apps kept crashing but the look and fell is a lot better.

Thoughts

While I agree I am of technical nature, it was hard to understand why each part was failing when it did and at the time was not each to hack the phone to enable me to get 2.1 on there. The question is though – should I be doing this or should T-Mobile or HTC not make it easy for me to upgrade my phone – the thing I am paying money for each month.

T-Mobile are in the business of selling voice and data plans, this new era of smart phone and updates are taking them by surprise and why on earth do they need to brand a phone in this day and age? Is it not enough that it says T-Mobile on the top? They need to get there support staff up to speed and quickly and they should not be taken off guard when a update come out.

HTC are in the business of selling phone and they keep producing these by the month it seems. They seem to forget that a person gets locked in for 18-24 months and cannot just change there phone. Android is in the business of software and why not have the same feature set on each phone?

To be totally honest here, I cannot see myself renewing with T-Mobile when my contract is up. Why should I trust HTC when they already junked the Hero? I can understand now why people go out and buy an iPhone – I for one wish I had..

It’s good to have your own personal wireless network, both for reasons of security and convenience – and now, with a little help from us, you can set one up with your HTC HD2.

So, if you like the sound of using your HTC HD2 as a wireless router, follow these simple steps:

1. Before you do anything, make sure that your HTC HD2 has a SIM card in it and its connected to the internet – 3G, GPRS and EDGE are all good – and the computer you’re using has a built-in or external Wi-Fi adaptor.

2. To set up your phone as a wireless router Tap Start and go to Wi-Fi Router.

3. If this is the first time you’ve opened Wi-Fi Router there’ll be a little introduction, which you can either watch or skip. After this, tap Next.

4. Now, you need to set up the phone’s Wi-Fi network by entering a network name and a ten digit WEP key.

Note: You can also use the provided default Network name and WEP key. In Internet Connection, find the data connection your phone uses, then tap Start.

1. Once your device is ready to accept connections it’ll display instructions on how to connect your computer to the Wi-Fi network.
2. Once you’ve done this, the instructions on your mobile should disappear and the Wi-Fi router screen should be displayed again.

Connecting your PC to your HTC HD2 wireless network

1. On your PC, select Start, then Connect To (Vista) or Connect to, followed by Wireless Network Connection (if using Windows XP)
2. In the Connect to a network box, select the name of your HTC HD2 network, then select Connect.
3. If your phone’s network doesn’t show, click refresh.
4. Enter your WEP key and then select Connect.
5. To turn your HTC HD2’s wireless router off, simply tap Stop on the Wi-Fi Router screen.

The smartphone war is well and truly underway, the big players including Apple, HTC, RIM, Samsung and Nokia are all vying for position in an already saturated mobile handset market.

Smartphone vendors are releasing handsets like never before but is it the best way to  increase the all-important revenue stream that keeps these companies in business?

To me, there are some fundamental mistakes that smartphone vendors are making when bringing their products to market and I believe they can be amended. All is explained after the jump.

1. Make All Smartphones Carrier Independent

When new smartphone handsets are launched, most are only available via one mobile carrier. A lone mobile carrier is quick to offer new handsets at lower prices, subsidizing the cost of the phone with a longer contract length in order to recoup some of the money invested in acquiring the phone.

This is dangerous, especially in countries where there are significant differences in the quality of service offered by different mobile carriers. For example, Apple have been scrutinised for offering the iPhone exclusively via AT&T, a network that customers have said offers poor customer service, bad coverage and costly tariffs.

Internationally, Apple initially offered the iPhone exclusively to one network but have since liberated the device, the company recently adding eight new carriers to reach of total of 151 worldwide. Cnet report that “including hardware, accessories, and payments from carriers, Apple made $5.3 billion off of its smartphone” last quarter.

It’s a bold move for vendors, especially as it impacts the companies that distribute its handsets. The market will always demand a choice, a mobile carrier should be one of them.

2. Concentrate On Quality NOT Quantity

Driven by Moore’s Law, smartphones also fall prey to being superseded by the bigger, better, more powerful device on the block. Personally, I have been in the position where I spend weeks trying to decide on a device that I feel is the best smartphone on the market, purchase it, only for the smartphone manufacturer to decide to release a new model that has double the processing speed and a huge number of extra features than my device the week after.

Back in December 2009, numerous tech outlets caught wind of the codenames of some of HTC’s upcoming handsets; Bahamas, Bravo, DesireC, Dragon, Dream, Espresso, Halo, HeroCT, HeroC, Hero, Huangshan, Incredible, Legend, Liberty, Memphis, Paradise, PassionC, Passion, Sapphire and Supersonic. Some of these have been released, some are due to launch very soon (a couple have been renamed).

I’m in the fortunate position to know how the HTC Incredible (due April 29th) differs from the HTC Evo (formerly Supersonic, due Summer 2010) yet the average consumer would have a hard time differentiating. Both devices offer 1GHz processing power, 512MB RAM, 8MP camera and run on the Android operating system, so does this mean the Incredible is being released to plug the gap until the slightly fuller featured Evo launches later in the summer? To me they are both great phones, why not release one instead of both and capitalise on it’s unique feature set?

If a customer purchases a new HTC handset, are they likely to be downcast when they learn that a new handset called the HTC Evo is due to be launch in 3 months and will feature 4G capability, HD recording and a front facing camera? My guess is yes.

3. Regularly Update Supported Devices

Most modern smartphones receive regular updates but its dependant on the device you own as to what software/firmware upgrades you can expect to get. If you own a smartphone that runs a proprietary operating system – in this case RIM, Apple and Windows Phone 7 – you are generally at the whim of the manufacturer as to what features are added when you do update.

As an owner of an Apple iPhone and a HTC Hero, I have experienced two entirely separate approaches to keeping a device current and feature rich.

Apple has been chastised for their inability to include what many mobile users consider default features; copy and paste, MMS and multi-tasking to name a few. But they do release steady updates for their customers, pushing the capability both old and newer iPhone models forward.

HTC on the other hand are very hit and miss. Owning a Hero, I have yet to receive the proposed Android 2.1 ROM update which has been threatening to be released any time now. My device is still chugging along on it’s default 1.5 Android build, yet Android 2.2 could be pushed to owners of Google’s Nexus One device as soon as May 19th.

The issue isn’t HTC specific but it doesn’t stop it being frustrating.

4. Increase Battery Life

The life of a smartphone battery is a short one, especially if the handset is in continual use. Handset vendors are constantly researching ways to get more out of Lithium batteries but most devices are unable to last a full day before they need recharging.

There are a number of different technologies in development that will allow for longer lasting batteries but in the meantime it would be interesting to see technologies such as photovoltaic cells incorporated into handsets to allow a handset owner to partially charge their phone using solar radiation.

Owning an iPhone, Blackberry fanboys will always play the “I get 3 days between charges” trump card when comparing the two phones. If a smartphone owner can get more than a day of use out of their handset they would be more likely to stay with the same manufacturer.

Conclusion

Most smartphone vendors are in a difficult position because ultimately it isn’t the vendors who sell devices to the end user. Agreements have to be drawn up with different mobile carriers to market and sell the handsets and as the mobile industry continues to grow, it’s the carriers who hold more weight with consumers.

What do you think vendors could do to retain your custom? Is it as easy as lengthening battery life or would it take something special to stop you ditching your current phone for an Apple iPhone or HTC Evo?

In the world of Apple with the iPhone, the same company sells you the phones as the one making the operating system but in the world of Android – One company makes the phones, another writes most of the OS, another bolt on a GUI and finally the Phone operators add there little bit to the phone – we have in fact Fragmentation.

Android Phone overview.

One of the popular people making Android phone about now is HTC and they have at the present time 36 Different types of phone on offer. Another month goes by and they make yet another model – this may be based on Windows Mobile (with an Android Looking skin) or Android itself. They might make a bigger screen, a better camera, faster CPU or some go faster stripes.

Updating Older phones

If you walked into a store and locked yourself into a 18 or 24 month deal – you may hope that the phone you just bought might get updated at some point via software, to fix the bugs and add new features. As each month passes – they promise that the next month is due for the update – honest and they know you cannot do anything as you are probably locked into a deal. At the same time – you see they have brought out an updated model of your phone, called it something else, stuck in a faster CPU and it has the updated software – this makes no sense.

The passage of blame

You call up the mobile phone operator – they do not have an update and blame HTC. You then call up HTC who either tells you its the mobile phone operators fault as they have to add there own modifications to the phone or in fact it is google – never there fault. They cannot give you a date for the software update and in fact tell you it might not happen.

Do they never learn?

While this culture of blame might get them off the hook, it has a much wider ramification – the downward spiral of people buying any phone made by them. In my own view for example that while the phone that I bought just about does the job – it has many little issues like the phone rebooting itself sometimes, having a hard time locking onto wireless signal and so forth. When the time comes to renew my contract, I shall have some serious thoughts:

Will I stick with T-Mobile due to there support been so bad? Probably not.

Will I buy another HTC phone when they so quickly brushed my request aside? No

Will I keep going with the Android platform? Probably not at this stage.

Android is a lot like Linux

Linux has that many different distributions, driver problems and looks that it can never hope to leap forward and go ahead of Windows or Mac. Android is the same – depending on what device you have, depends on what you can do. Why is my Facebook App so different from the one on the Windows Mobile (but still Android) version yet from the same people?

Getting there Act together

It is time for someone to take control, I guess Google and make this something to be proud of otherwise people will just fall back onto the iPhone. A good example here is I can buy an Alarm Clock, Radio, Car Dock and many other devices and the iPhone not only slots into them all but they work using the iPhone as a devide to either display the time or play a tune or even a GPS – can you imagine me trying to do the same with my HTC Hero?

T-Mobile

I called there technical support and the first problem was they had no idea what I was talking about, I need to stress here that if a company provide so called Technical support – they need to train there staff on what equipment they sell along with any info (such as updates) that are coming forth. Once we had broken down the conversation to the basic’s such as the HTC Hero was a Android phone and it was running Version 1.5 plus Google have released Version 2.1 some time back etc – we had a starting block.

The Tech Guy basically searched on the web (I had already done that) and asked the people around him and finally he came up with the statement that HTC need to release this first and I should be calling them, he even sent a SMS to my phone with there number. I was in fact no further forward in finding out when this thing will be updated.

HTC

Press 1 for Tech Support, Press 2 to get through to a guy who has no idea what we do – option 2 it was

After explaining what phone I owned and him struggling to find it on his list of models he supports, he then told me it was not in fact called the Hero but the G2 touch! He had no idea of this so called update and it may or may not come out at the end of March – he told me to call T-Mobile, they might have an idea as we sir do not !!

He then went on to explain that if for example T-Mobile do not request an update, they will not make one – so I need to be blaming the operator and not the people who actually made the phone right? I suggested that maybe I should have bought an iPhone and he shocked by saying “yes, Maybe that might have been a better idea” – amazing or what !! I never got his name and nor did I record the conversation but boy, I wish I did now.

Conclusion

I should not have to fight to find out when a major update then I can actually download and put on illegally will be coming from either my carrier (T-Mobile) or HTC. How can they have phones already for sale running Sense UI and T-Mobile branding yet have no update for me?

As someone mentioned, Android is fragmented rather like Linux and the reason why no matter how good it might get, it start to get bad quickly when you hear of stories like this.  I am locked into a 18 month contract, 4 months have passed, so some time before I can swap.

Will I be buying more HTC Stuff or Android? If it was at this stage then I would have said no way ever again due to lack of support and knowledge from the people that make it. Maybe I should have just paid the money and bought Apple.

It was a surprise hit over the holiday period in fact, selling in excess of 20,000 in a two week period and you can see why:

• Very cheap to buy
• Very long battery life
• Simple to operate (you call people – how retro is that)
• Slim line – fits in pocket easy.
• No major problem if you loose it while drunk.

Further, As skinny jeans are becoming more and more fashionable, 69% of Brits — apparently — find it uncomfortable to squeeze a stupidly large mobile phone in their pocket.

I would like to point out that the iPhone is pretty skinny. But if you assume an average total 18-month cost of an iPhone as £800, you could buy about 44 Party Phones for the same price. The Party phone is unlocked so it’ll work on any network (apart from 3).

No Matter were you look these days there is no end of choice of touch screen, full blown wireless and always on connectivity along with touch screens putting you online and far exceeding the basic idea of a mobile phone (that is to call people) but has anyone stopped and thought “What do I really need out of this device?”

The rise of the mobile phone

I actually remember when they first were on the scene and they were large as shown by this picture

As you can see, quite something to carry around but it gave people the chance to be able to ring or take calls anywhere. Used by more the business people (who stored them in there brief case), there were big, expensive and battery life was very bad indeed. Screens were limited to displaying numbers (much like the house phone) and coverage was pretty bad.

Strapping on the kitchen sink

As phone’s got smaller and more people made them, companies started to look at what they could add on to the phone to make it look better then the next one. This started the rise of camera’s, bigger screens, music players, keyboards and so forth. We saw mobiles there were very small but lacked features versus the PDA Like version that bulked out your pocket.

Were are we today?

The phones feature pretty fast CPU’s these days (In relation to mobile phones), high resolution screens (some do 800×600), camera’s that range from 3.2megapixels all the way up to 12 megapixels, they feature storage in the terms of gigabytes and can store many albums of music along with videos. The all seem to have 3G Network for that always on fairly fast connections to browse the web and can connect via wireless for added speed. The final thing is now they feature application you can add, this alone has changed the face of phones – no longer are you limited to what came with the phone but you can add a different facebook program, a soundboard of Family Guy and even better – they feature GPS to allow you to find your way home.   

Looking at what people really use there phones for.

In the morning, I check my various sites (Twitter, Facebook, email) and maybe even have a quick look around the web while listening to music from iTunes – I could do this on the phone of course easy enough but I cannot see me writing a blog post such as this on a touch screen for sure.

Work is around the corner, so no time to listen to music from the phone – this is provided by the car in fact. At work I have a full blown computer to go on the internet should I need to, the phone provide more of a way for instant knowledge that I have a new twitter, email or facebook post. The issue here lies in that while the phone provide a way of informing me of information and with the likes of Twitter or facebook were typing is limited to a few lines of text – this is not a replacement for a computer in any form just yet.

Is there way it has changed what you can do?

I can now twitter/facebook on the move, informing people what I am doing and along with this I can use the camera to take a picture of relevance and have it online in seconds. Compare this to other methods – I would carry around a camera, take various pictures and upon getting home boot the computer up, place the memory card in the computer and copy the files across then get to upload them to the various sites.

Thoughts

My point I think I am trying to say is that with a “normal” phone you can take picture, call people, take calls, play music and listen to radio as required and probably the battery life will be 10 fold to any of the latest phones. People survived before but now they want there phone to do everything for them, from telling them how to get to work, providing the music while getting there and keeping in touch in more ways possible with every human on the planet. People have even become emotionally attached to there phones, defending them at any xost saying how much better phone X is then phone Y – I find this pretty amazing to say the least. Maybe people do this because they have not only splashed down a big chunk of money to get the phone but are now locked into paying money per month for the next 2 years of there life?   

What about you?

I own an Android, it cost me nothing to buy and I am only locked in for 18 months and does most things well, I know people who own iPhones who swear by them – what are your thoughts on all of this?

I kept hearing reports, mainly from the live streams (USA Bound) that these Android do not support multi touch and a whole raft of issues but here I was sitting with a phone that does multi-touch as good as the iphone. The Windows Mobile with Android bolted on had facebook but the application looked different from the one sitting on my phone (mine was better). 

The HD2 Touch was a lot bigger, not as glossy as HTC Hero and had a camera that stuck out – it was a better camera then mine (same Megapixel) but at the expense of design. So basically – not all Android phones or devices are the same and do not assume reviewing one device makes them the same as the next.

The Good

The size of the phone is very small and thin – I have no trouble carrying this around in either my Jean’s pocket or my suit trousers and the weight does not come into question. I have not had a single case of the phone doing mad things while in my pocket, by comparison the Sony W850 I had liked to text and call people all the time.

I like the fact it takes Micro SD Cards which means I can go out and buy extra and/or larger cards to suit, swapping the cards did not prove difficult at all and can be done with the phone on. I have yet to upgrade from the supplied 2GIG card which holds quite a few applications as well as a collection of music.

There is a varied amount of application on offer and the phone offer’s multi touch, the applications all have ratings which help pick out the good from the bad and most I have come across are free. I would prefer if the paid apps had a demo mode and let me install them to see if I want to buy them rather then pay and hope for the best that they do what they say on the can.

The Bad

Battery Life – this is the most major bad point I can say right now and in reality I charge this phone each night. I spent a day at work patching in network points and listened to some music stored on the card plus making a few phone calls, checking mail and such and the battery used 1/4 of it power (this is good). Another day I drove 120 miles to see the family and used the GPS function, it had almost ran out of battery by 4pm. Heavy use of the 3G and/or wireless will kill the battery it seems.

The phone goes to sleep while on a call, not good if you need to press a numbered button and you end off killing the call instead. When the phone rings – the screen is still locked, maybe this is something I need to get used to I guess. It is fiddly to switch to Speaker phone mode and the whole calling experience is in fact flawed. While using the supplied hands free headphones – I managed to start the music in the middle of a call – not good.

Speed – the whole thing seems very slow to use and could do with some updates to be honest and I need to speak about the GPS part. This is not a replacement for a GPS, it kept telling me to turn left on a Major road where there was no left turn, I think it was referring to much later on in the journey and it kept saying “Pay Attention”.

Conclusion

It is a good phone but they need to re-think when putting these phones out that Battery life is mega important. It would be easier to buy the individual parts (such as GPS for your car) then trying to let the phone do everything.

The figures were collected and crunched by Android-focused website, Androlib, which hasn’t said where it got its figures. It has however been tracking Android apps since its launch as Googld doesn’t disclose statistical data related to Android.

Nearly a third of those applications are paid for and according to Androlib, the end of November 209 saw a spike when more than 350 applications and games were published on a single day.

Finally, the overwhelming number of applications in the market – 85 percent – are non gaming. Android Market passed the 10,000 app count back in July 2009. 2010 is going to be a pretty exciting year for the Android platform, bring on the Nexus!