Why are you here?!?!?!?!!!!???

We have a brand spanking new site at:

http://www.lineardroid.co.uk/

Time to make some changes around here...

We will be implementing some new infrastructure changes on Lineardroid...do I sound like I know what I'm doing when I say that....anyway.

Basically we're moving our hosting and blogging system over the next few weeks so updates may be a little thin, but we'll soon be up and running.

And PS to the Germans at android-hilfe.de thanks for linking to us, and proving the fact that HTC's delays over 2.1 for Hero is a truly multi cultural problem...I think...to be honest I can't really read German lol.

App Review: Cardio Trainer with Weight Loss Trainer

For the past week I've been testing out Cardio Trainer from Work Smart Labs for Android. I've also been using it with the bonus add on feature, "weight loss trainer".

The app basically focus's on exercise rather than calorie counting, which I believe is important when keeping healthy and loosing weight.

This concept of "healthy weight loss" and all the great features it offers was what initially drew me to Cardio Trainer. 

But weight there's more (sorry terrible pun)

Android and security

I was reading a little article earlier about Norton releasing an app that allows you to control your Norton 360 application on Windows from a anywhere, presumably to allow you to run a definition update or induce a mind-numbingly slow virus scan (never been a fan of Norton, sorry).

This got me thinking about Android and security. We keep or lives on our phones; the people near and dear to our hearts, appointments, emails, text messages, photos, music, videos.... the list goes on. But what if, god forbid, we should lose our precious device out of negligence or theft? There are a few options out there for the more paranoid of users...

Lineardroid.co.uk

Well we've finally taken the plunge and we now have a .co.uk, but remember that lineardroid.blogspot.com still redirects to this address.

Please update your RSS feeds so you can stay up to date with Linear Droid.

Check back over the next few weeks, as we will be completely updating the site layout, and moving to our fully functional LinearDroid version 1.0.

So fingers crossed we have no problems.

We all desire the Desire

Is there any droid-aholic out there that is not drooling? We are almost 'universally' in agreement that the Desire is one of the sexiest phones to come from HTC with our favourite mobile OS installed and is possibly the nicest Android phone so far.

Fennec to be available in Q4 2010

An update from our friends at Androidandme, the Firefox mobile browser "Fennec" is expect to be available to us mortals in the last quarter of 2010.

I wonder if google will look to improve their browser, to compete with Fennec. I'm sure some one will leak the specs and features, and Google will look to match and even beat its Firefox counterpart.

Further delays for HTC Hero update to 2.1

How long do Hero users need to wait to be upgraded to 2.1? The grumblings from the Android community is that it could be as late as April not mid-March as we had previously been led to believe.


This has not gone down well with myself, as one of the main reasons I bought this phone and bought into Android was because the phone was updated frequently...or was supposed to.

Desire on Nexus...

So, you may have heard the good news. Modaco, famed for his Hero ROM, has already got a the SenseUI-ified HTC Desire ROM working on a Nexus One. As we know, the Desire and Nexus One are almost identical, hardware wise. Aside from the optical 'mouse' and physical buttons and a tiny bit more RAM , they ARE identical. Analogous to the Dream/G1 and the Magic/MT3G.

HTC Desire......Mummy

Well we wouldn't be a very good Android focused tech blog if we didn't discuss the new juicy piece of kit from HTC.

The HTC Desire, and can I say its a fantastic name because I certainly do desire one of these phones. The phone has been touted as the replacement for the sort of current flagship sense phone from HTC, the Hero. I say sort of because the Nexus didn't exactly make it obsolete with all the issues it's had.

We can quote Rom developer Cyanogen in saying that "the Desire is a nexus done right". 

The phone packs some impressive specs, such as the 1 Ghz SnapDragon  processor which is becoming a standard on many smart phones from HTC recently. This processor allows the phone to work more comfortably, and possibly run Adobes Air apps if and when Android gets them.

Lack of Posts

We would like to apologise for the lack of posts recently. We've been working out some kinks in the site, and we've been toying with the idea of moving to a .co.uk address with a wordpress system.

So we'll try and sort out some posts for you sooner rather than later.

Silent Gary...source of all opposition to Open Source software

Clearly Apple must have a "Silent Gary".

Finally, some coverage....

I was on my way to university this morning and was sitting reading my Metro, as I always do when a nice little smile appeared on my face. I was reading a lovely little story about a bank boss scamming £50,000 when something caught my eye...

I saw a large advert for a phone with a familiar looking bar along the top of the display... "That looks familiar.... hold on, that's Android!!!". It was the LG GW620...

For the first time since the G1 was released, I have finally seen an advert where the people plugging the phone actually mention the word ANDROID. "....a free app available on Android Market....."

Symbian moves to full open source

One of the world largest mobile phone operating system companies "Symbian" has finally moved to open source.

Speaking to the BBC Ian Fogg and analyst for Forrester research stated that:

"It's useful for them to say Symbian is now open - Google has done very well out of that"

This move makes the mobile phone OS market primarly open source, with companies like Android and now Symbian leading the way.

Lee Williams of Symbian also speaking to bbc.co.uk said

"It will increase rate of evolution and increase the rate of innovation of the platform"

This is a very interesting point as it clearly shows the advantage to business's in becoming open-source. I feel that many companies won't go open source because the research and investment that has gone into the development of their code is very valuable. It also comes from the old more traditional way of doing business. That is adding value to a product, and keeping that value under wraps so that competition can't compete.

Linear Droid version 0.8.5: Updates

Well I've been changing the blog around more. I've sorted out the Twitter feed so it works a little bit more smoothly, so be sure to follow us.

I've also removed the rating system, I couldn't figure out how to get it to sit where I wanted so I removed it, it didn't seem to be getting any attention anyway.

I've also added a, "About Us" page so you can all see the saddos behind this blog...apologise for the pictures.

Also we will hopefully be moving this Beta blog out of beta soon for Linear Droid 1.0, and we're hopefully going to be moving to a www.lineardroid.co.uk or something like that, with a much more powerful wordpress system. So that will be cool but it will all be the same old content great posts, humour...bad humour, and more.

But I will let everyone know if there are any changes.

CyanogenMOD 4.2.14.1

Well, we finally have a nice shiny new CM build for the Dream and Magic after Cyanogens little break from 4.x to work on 5.x for the Nexus One. I am sure most of you would agree that once you go root, you CRAVE updates... even tiny ones.

But I have got to admit, I had been using 4.2.9.1 since it came out... The last few updates had been really slow and Force Close-ey and anyone who emailed me for advice on how to speed it up (I run the 'customer support' for the cmupdater and CM ROMs) would just get the reply "go back to 4.2.9.1"

It looks like I can stop telling people to stick with 4.2.9.1 now as this latest build feels super-snappy. It is more responsive than the last 5 builds, at least, and even possibly more.

It has the lovely new Desk Clock/Alarm app from eclair as well as the great contact mod by Wysie...and a multitude of bugfixes and extras including the 'pushed out of memory bug' that was affecting things like ebuddy and the cmupdater, as well as the issue with the gmail app not getting 'tickled' properly.

I can finally say that the update-monkey on my back has been shut up for atleast a week.

Great work, as always, Cyanogen.

You can get the latest update via the cmupdater (as always)

Don't be evil Steve: Steve Jobs attacks Google in speech to employees

As you may have read in the blogosphere Steve Jobs CEO of Apple has made so very "interesting" comments regarding Android and Adobe.

In a speech at a conference that has been referred to as a town hall meeting with employees of Apple, Jobs stated that:

"On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s *******.” Audience roars" 

Has Steve Jobs cracked or is this a clearly executed attempt to say to Google "Its on!!!"

Firefox for Android, the ever changing world of mobile web browsing

Some exciting news that has been bouncing around the Android community is that the popular Browser development company "Mozzila" has begun development to "Androidise" their current browser "Firefox".

Android guys has reported that murmurings from the German Firefox community suggest that a fully functional version of the Browser could be available for Android within the next 6 months, with the beta available by February.

This is obviously very exciting news, and with Adobe saying that full Flash for Android will arrive in roughly the same time frame, web browsing on mobile devices is set to step up a notch.

Apple announces its new product, the iPad

In the wake of the realise and announcement of Apples iPad, both community's Android and Apple are flooding with opinions, and views but are Apple users really happy with the iPad.

Google versus Apple...

It’s no secret that Android has become the biggest threat to Apple since....well ever.

But have you ever stopped to consider why...

Universal Updater

Post in brief, may include pictures too

Here is something exciting...

It looks like we will have a universal updater for all Android ROMs pretty soon if things go well.

We all know that AndroidSpin as the universal repository of Android ROMs - mirroring most popular ROMs as well as providing extremely detailed information on the ROMs themselves...

Google taunt perhaps

I just noticed that when you visit http://www.google.co.uk/mobile the search on the iPhone is for "cupcakes".

Could this be in reference to Google android 1.5 named cupcake.

I hope so...

Blogging from Android

Just trying to set up mobile blogging for Ross and me.

Linear Droid version 0.8: Updates

Well I've been playing around with the Twitter, and the code to get it so that it Tweets everytime Ross or I post, make life a little easier for our readers.

Important: If you want to do a hashtag Tweet so it shows up in our Twitter search on the right hand side, you will need to ensure that your profile is not set to private.

I've also been playing around with the graphics on the site to make them tidier and so it works with all major browsers so there have been some small changes to the site.

We're on Twitter...

That's right folks we're now on Twitter. So feel free to click the link at the top of the page and follow us.

Also you should know, even though Ross and Craig have links to their Twitters on Linear Droid we will only accept followers we know.

New Authors

Hey there I'm Craig, I do all the coding and upkeep for Linear Droid, and I've just set it up so that both myself, Ross and Linear Droid can all post separately.

I hope this will organise the blog a bit better and it will allow Ross to post Cm updater stuff, and myself to post updates on site problems and fixes.

Cheers...

Discussion: Why choose Android?, Themes, and 2.1 update

In todays post both me and Ross discussed our motivations behind choosing Android, make a brief trip into the land of themes and also discuss the upcoming realise of Android 2.1....