G1 News

“We inadvertently unpublished your application for all mobile providers; if you like, we can restore your app so that all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network will have access to your application.”

The response received by the blokey whose app was unceremoniously removed from the Android Market, after it allowed users to tether their T-Mobile G1 to a lappy for internet downloading and the like (provided they had root access to their G1).

You’d think it was quite a niche app, but the functionality was enough that T-Mobile US turned the screws and got it pulled. Network specific and-yet-somehow open app garden? Hmm, interesting…

It all sounds like an honest accident following that apology, but do you believe Google’s intentions are pure, or is the Android Market just as closed off to developer innovation when it apps have the potential to jeopardise the carriers’ food/money supply?

Truphone Anywhere is an application for Wi-Fi enabled handsets that lets users make cheap international calls. Currently the Truphone application is available on iPhone, Blackberry and Nokia devices. Truphone even works on an iPod touch turning your MP3 player into a mobile phone. From today the Truphone Anywhere application is now available for Android enabled devices, including the recently released G1 phone. Truphone works in 33 countries and saves users a vast amount of money in making international calls to those countries. Truphone also works really well with instant messaging. From one application Truphone users can use instant meassaging on a variety of networks such as MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk and Twitter. Truphone will soon incorporate Skype messaging and Skype calls.

Got a G1? Missing your mobile Facebook fix? Jealous of all those iPhone users uploading pictures an poking away?

Well, the self-proclaimed ‘mobile geeks’ at Next Mobile Web has managed to get the next best thing to T-Mobile G1 owners with the fBook app!

fBook is an Android app which tkes the setup of the iPhone-optimised mobile version of Facebook and crowbars it onto your G1. It brings over the more robust features of photo uploads, whilst also adding some Android-specific bonus content!

fBook allows you to detect incoming notifications and message alerts, and with the application able to run in the background on the G1, it can do so even whilst it is closed!

Also, and phone number in a Facebook profile instantly becomes ‘live’ when seen through fBook, with a text message button allowing you to instantly contact them online as well as iRL (in real life for you non-geeks!).

Despite not being the official Facebook app, fBook is a more than capable solution for the G1 in the meantime!

Download it from the Android Marketplace…it’s free!