G1 News

According to two recent reports Google’s Android platform is set to overtake the Apple iPhone in terms of downloaded apps.

The first report to suggest this trend comes from AdMob, a Google-owned source. Nevertheless, AdMob’s reports states that there will more Android users than Apple iPhone users by the end of 2010.

The second report to suggest the Android’s pre-eminence is perhaps more convincing, coming from independent telecoms analyst Ovum. Ovum expect that by 2015 Android will be responsible for 26 percent of all app downloads, while iPhone will see just 22 percent. That would be a huge shift from last year’s figures of 14 percent for Android and 67 percent for iPhone.

The reason for this trend? We expect is has everything to do with the large volume of low cost Android phones out there, and with an iPhone contract recall imminent, might Google have Apple on the run?

Google have just introduced a toolkit which makes it easy for newbies to computer programming to make their own apps. App Inventor for Android allows you to build just about any app you can imagine with a minimum of prior knowledge of code.

Instead of requiring written code, App Inventor allows you to design applications using a block-like graphical system. The App Inventor authors have created blocks for just about everything you can do with an Android phone, as well as blocks for doing “logic-based programmy” stuff, for instance, blocks that store information, repeat actions, or those that perform actions under certain conditions.

See the below video for a run-through:

If you’ve been looking at Samsung Galaxy S deals but haven’t seen the apps yet that you really want, programs like App Builder make it possible to go home and just make your own! Fantastic.

Fring has just enabled free two-way internet video calling on Android based devices. The company already offers the same service to Nokia phones (on the Symbian S60) and iPhone owners, but this next step looks to be cementing Frig as a big player in the emerging mobile video app market.

With Android users on over 50 different devices logging into Fring everyday, CEO Avi Schechter was proud to announce that they had developed the first two-way video calls over the internet on Google’s mobile platform

Forthcoming devices such as the HTC Evo 4G feature forward facing cameras, so demand for this service is set to explode as people seek to use their phones for more than just voice-calls.

Schechter cited Android’s market reach, combined with the openness of the platform allowed the developers to swiftly create the pioneering application.

Meanwhile Skype, currently the most prominent brand in Voip services, announces that their two-way video call app was on it’s way sometime later in 2010. A little late though guys!- Fring seem one step ahead of the game!

Looking to the future though, it’ll be interesting to see when these data-hungry video call apps will be allowed to run over the network. Even the best mobile phone deals internet allowance would be eaten up in a snap using a service such as Fring and currently, they are only available over WiFi connections. Alas, it looks as if the days of 2-way video calling on the move is still a long way off, at least until the networks start tapping on the 4G standard.

Source: TGDaily

Google has just updated their Google Goggles application with the addition of a new feature – text translation. To translate text, just photograph the text you want translated with your Android smartphone’s camera, then the app translates the text into English.

Google Googles is available exclusively on Android devices and with no details on whether Google plans to roll this application out to other platforms, this is another solid reason why you’ll be patting yourself on the back if you opt for Android handset.

The service currently supports a number of languages including English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. However, Google intends to expand this even further.

So, if you’re linguistically challenged and headed for a European break this summer – make sure you snap up the latest version of Google Googles!

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Twitter has announced that it is working on an official Android app.

The news came from CEO Evan Williams, who told the audience of the Twitter Chirp conference that Google’s open source-operating system would soon get its own fully native app for the microblogging sensation.

Last week, Twitter acquired Tweetie for the Apple iPhone, and also teamed up with RIM to build an offical app for their Blackberry range.

The new Android Twitter app will face some stuff competition from existing third-party client applications like Seesmic or Twit Droid, but bearing the ‘official’ tag could well prove a big selling point.

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The Orange Wednesdays app has been around for the iPhone for some time but now it comes to Android too! With Orange Wednesdays you get 2 for 1 cinema vouchers, so this app will tell you what pictures are showing near you, allow you to read reviews, watch trailers and locate more cinemas.

The app will also let you share to a friend all the details of the movie, directly from the app.

To get it, head to the Android Market and search for “Orange Wednesdays”.
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Oh dear it seems as though there may be a pretty serious security issue present in Android OS, specifically related to Open Home. Open Home is a home replacement application that gives Android users a whole new series of themes. The problem is to do with permissions, and what Open Home can acess. Android’s home screen has open permission, giving the programme access to contacts and short cuts to apps. This means someone could develop an app to be used in conjunction with Open Home which replaces the home screen that could maliciously access the phone’s contacts and pass them onto a third party. Because the home screen has permission to app short cuts, a programme could be developed simply to reroute users to a fake programme that could steal username and password info.

It is these sorts of security issues that might make people wonder whether it was such a great idea for Google to give anyone free reign to release Apps into the market without any serious scrutiny. Apple’s App store may be restrictive and controlling but at least issues like this would never come about.

Androinica have got hold of a letter from an Android developer worrying about the dangers of using Open Home from Better Android:

I am an engineer on the Android Team and I worked on the default Home screen. I recently came across your Home replacement called Open Home. First of all, let me congratulate you for it, it has some very nice ideas and it’s good to finally see a viable 3rd party replacement for our Home screen. However, I would like to warn you about two very serious security holes in your application, both related to the way you implemented widgets.
(some texts removed….) * by Better Android

Home runs with quite a few permissions, most notably the ability to read contacts. With your implementation of widgets, any application can offer a new widget that, once installed by the user, will silently use Home’s permissions to achieve whatever it needs. For instance, a widget could be easily modified to read all the contacts and upload them silently to a website. At no point the user will know that the widgets will make use of the “read contacts” permission.

The second security hole is the ability you give the widgets to spoof any other app. A widget could for instance find shortcuts on the Home screen and change their Intent or attach a different click listener to execute something entirely different. This way, a widget could for instance execute a fake Email app and grab the user’s password and emails. A widget could do much more too since they have access to all the information stored in the Home screen UI. These two very important issues are the reason why widgets were not implemented in Android 1.0. We need to implement them correctly to guarantee the privacy and safety or the user’s data.

As your application currently stand, I would strongly advise you to disable the widgets support until you come up with a secure implementation of widgets. You have customers who paid for your applications and it would be really bad both for them, you and Android if a malicious widgets started taking advantage of these security holes.

- -UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE- -

Better Android have been in contact to refute the claims in this post check ‘em out here.

The German Verbs App is slightly more useful than this one especially when it comes to the difficulty of learning German verbs. With the German language, the mentality seems to be, why invent new words when you can just stick existing ones together to describe the new concept. This cut and shut approach to language results in extremely long words such as Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän and makes learning it a tricky process for English speakers who are used to having more words at a shorter lengths.

As this is a new App, the G1 Market News community haven’t yet rated it but it is sure to be popular for linguists and tourists alike as it provides a really useful service.

G1 Market News

I am personally concerned for just how many mails I’ve had asking for a Twilight Theme for the T-Mobile G1! Thought it only fair that I linked y’all on to G1PhoneWallpaper.com, and gave you what you so desire!

Twilight Wallpaper – normal resolution of 320 x 480

Twilight Wallpaper – widescreen resolution of 500 x 375

Original version – here

Be sure to check out www.G1Wallpaper.com for all manner of great wallpapers. Not guaranteeing any of those will have pasty-faced angst ridden vampires in them, but there’s no harm in looking!

Not really sure what this movie is about, seems pretty similar to the Buffy/Angel interspecies love affair. Am I right?

Anyone that bought an unblocked G1 phone is no longer able to download apps from the app store, since  Google changed the set up last week. Any user with an unblocked G1  phone can’t access copy prohibited applications, including those that cost to download.

Google made the changes in an attempt to close a loophole that reportedly allows users to unlock the phone and download apps for free. Google allows returns within 24 hours of downloading. The Android market allows anyone to return an application within 24 hours; in contrast to the iPhone app store which has none of the freedoms of the Android system.

So how it works is this – protected applications are automatically downloaded into a private Android folder. Most phone users can’t access the files but users of the developer phone can. In that way a specific developer phone user could buy an application, copy it from a private folder, return the application for a refund and then re-download the application to the phone. The developer version of the G1 was designed to give developers “flexibility” by letting them have full permission to use the software.

But I know that if I’d paid $400 for a phone and then found out that I couldn’t access any of the applications, I’d be mightily pissed off. If it was applications (that I’d designed myself) and I couldn’t get access to on my phone; I’d be even more pissed off.

One developer is proposing a “developer revolt” and encouraging all developers to pull their applications from the store.

“It would be the only way to show Google that this is not acceptable, and that devs are not second (third?) class citizens on the Market”.

“I am beyond angry that I can not even see my own paid app on the market with my 400 dollar dev phone!”

Looks like Google have got some making up to do.