HTC Magic is official!
Vodafone just got the world’s first touchscreen-only Android phone: HTC’s Magic. The phone comes with a 3.2-inch HVGA screen front and center, HDSPA, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera (no flash), and a G1-style trackball. Details on pricing and availability will be unveiled for local Vodafone markets as they see fit, but pricing in Spain will be from 99 to 199 Euro, depending on contract. Initial markets to nab the phone will be UK (due in April), Spain, Germany, France and Italy, with more countries to follow, and the phone will be a timed exclusive with Vodafone. But at least this one will ship with a touchscreen keyboard out of the gate — it’s running Cupcake.
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Updated HTC Dream coming to Spain
Telefonica, the largest fixed-line and mobile telecommunications companies in the world, is bringing the HTC Dream to Spain. But not the Old T-Mobile G1 one. An updated one, although it does still have the same look and feel. It’ll be available for between €0 and €199 depending on your current subscriber status and the plan you choose. Read
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Optus is bringing HTC Dream to Australia
T-Mobile G1, opps, I meant the HTC Dream, is coming to Australia, thanks to Optus, one of Telstra’s biggest competitor. HTC Dream is one of the phone’s rumored names prior to its original release, you might recall — featuring 2100MHz HSDPA, WiFi, and everything else you’ve come to know and love / hate about the world’s first retail Android device. It’ll launch February 16 on plans starting at $59 Australian (about $38) per month, so it’ll be pretty accessible. Read
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How to: Try Android "Cupcake" yourself
2. Download this zip containing new latest Android images:
- android_images_sdk1.5.zip (28Mb)
4. Backup the folder
5. Replace the files
6. Start the emulator and wait.
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Windows Mobile 6.5 shows up on the Compulab exeda
Who cares how the phone looks like. It’s awesome. Why? It can boot Android AND Windows Mobile. Did I mention you could also plug in an RH-45 Ethernet cable? And a phone with left/right click mouse?
Anyways, back to the OS, the team just shows us their phone booted with Windows Mobile 6.5 Alpha. Check it out.
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Andriod "Cupcake" Screenshots
[Cupcake] was a parallel branch that was used for further development while [the Android team] took on the task of converting a main code branch into an open source format. They merged it back when they were done with the open source transition, not because the engineers working on cupcake had produced a final solid product-worthy result. So, some “works in progress” that had been going on in a dead end parallel branch was merged into master. That doesn’t mean it is ready for release.
That’s according to T-Mobile.
Okay. Cool. So what IS new with my Chocolate cupcake? 
1. New Local Setting Page – Gives you option to pick different locales and pick different text inputs.
2. New Option to view running and third party applications – An option to view running and third party applications from the normal application list. Does not provide a way to terminate them.
3. New windows opening/closing animation effect – a new popping effect when windows are opened/closed.
4. New default notepad – a very simple and ugly default notepad.
5. New Global Time application – not sure if it will be provided by T-Mobile but it’s just a rotating Earth and I couldn’t get it to do anything else.
6. New Spare Parts Application – Once again not sure if the official version will have this, but it provides a number of extra settings such as setting windows animation and transition animation speed, font size, end button behavior and etc. It also has a “display rotation” option which supposedly should allow auto-rotate base on orientation across the entire os, but it is not currently working.
7. New Virtual Keyboard - The virtual keyboard will pop up on every edit box. I didn’t feel any haptic feedback but I am thinking that it’s just not there on the example keyboard. Because the phone does not auto-rotate (an option exists but it doesn’t work), it’s very hard to type on it. The sample keyboard also does not provide auto-corrections.
8. Slightly better looking buttons with more shadow.
Screenshots:
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HTC G2 Sapphire spyshot
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Fake Android on Sciphone Dream G2: Oh Why?
At Josh’s Blog, I personally have an open source belief, although I still rely on closed sourced programs and Operating Systems. So imagine my support for Google’s Open Source Andriod when it was announced.. I love Google and many of their Open Source ambitions.
And yet I’m sure the people behind Sciphone Dream G2 (no relation to The T-Mobile G1 by the ways) DOESN’T unserstand what Open Source. They ripped off the WHOLE Google Andriod look.
Back in November, I thought this phone actually had the real deal of the Andriod OS. But no. They had to RIP OFF a whole Open Source system. Just wow. Check out the video below:
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Android powered Kogan Agora spyshots
Okay, yes, we were mad skeptical that the Agora would ever see the light of day, and you know what? This is one situation where we’re absolutely delighted to be proven wrong. Kogan’s homegrown Android handset just got pictured in the wild — the first time we’ve seen anything but a render — on its way to a supposed CES debut. Read
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Leaked G1 firmware lets you revert to RC29
Did you accidentally flip the switch on that OTA update to RC30 on your G1 and currently find yourself stuck with a non-root lifestyle? Well thanks to forum member chavonbravo over at xda-developers, things are about to get awesome for you. You can now revert back to RC29 with ease by snagging the uploaded image, renaming, copying to your microSD card, and running through standard procedure for re-flashing the phone. We can attest that the hack does indeed work, so feel free to proceed. Word to the wise, though: getting up to a modded RC30 isn’t as easy as some might have you believe, so set aside a little time to walk through the steps (check out ModMyGPhone’s guide page for clear instructions). Read
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