The Android Developers made the Android 1.5 SDK available for download, providing developers with a wide range of brand new features that will offer them the necessary tools to create new applications for compliant Android-powered devices.

The new development kit is geared, obviously, for the new version of Android, a refresh that owners of all Android phones will eventually be able to enjoy. It brings with it several important tools to make development easier, including a Virtual Devices feature to let developers emulate multiple Android devices and other improvements to better gauge performance issues – a big concern for mobile environments where battery life and CPU power are limited with a number of new features, including home-screen widgets, speech recognition, live folders, and soft keyboards, as well as new programming tools.

This is also the first version of the SDK that will support add-ons, letting developers easily import external libraries. While very little of this is important to the end user, it’s great news for the Android platform as a whole, as easier development will likely mean more programs to choose from.
Android 1.5 OS will probably be released for all Android smartphones in May, one month before Samsung launches the i7500, its very first Android handset.

SDK Contents Development tools

The SDK includes a full set of tools for developing and debugging application code and designing an application UI. You can read about the tools in the Dev Guide and access them in the /tools/ directory.

The tools package in this SDK includes updates from those provided in the previous SDK. The tools also require a different project structure. To use the new tools, you need to migrate your applications to the new development environment. For more information about how to migrate, see Upgrading the SDK.

Here is the download link

The analysts said they expect Palm to have a stockpile of around 375,000 units at the device’s debut (the figure is the median number of units the six analysts surveyed predicted).

A smartphone pioneer with its Treo, Palm has fallen on tough times against rivals such as Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone. When Pre launches with exclusive U.S. carrier Sprint in the first half of 2009, it will be the first phone to run Palm’s new operating system, called WebOS, under development for well over a year. No pricing for the hardware has been set. “We’re extremely enthusiastic about this device,” Sprint CEO Dan Hesse says.

Pre is a handsome, curved, 4.8-ounce device that’s more compact than the iPhone. Like the iPhone, it uses sensors and touch gestures to enlarge photos and Web pages. It also has a hidden, slide-down qwerty keyboard to complement the vibrant 3.1-inch touch-screen. There are other features that the iPhone doesn’t have, including support for Bluetooth wireless stereo devices and a removable battery.

You can also run several applications at once. For example, you’ll be able to listen to music in the Pandora Internet radio application while surfing the Web. You cannot do that on the iPhone.

Facebook was one of the partners to join Palm on stage at CES. Other partners include Google, Yahoo and Amazon. But Palm was not specific about the number of applications that will be available for the phone at launch.

Pandora chief technology officer Tom Conrad says it took days rather than months to develop the Pandora app for the new Palm. The operating system “is really solid,” he says.

Palm Chairman Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple executive instrumental in producing the iPod, says, “We’re just getting started.” A big early goal: “It had to be mostly usable with a single hand and minimize the number of button-presses.”

Palm CEO Ed Colligan scoffs at critics who think the Pre arrives too late to compete against BlackBerry, iPhone and other competitors. “I don’t even remotely feel like it’s too little too late. It’s a big, big space.”

Samsung I7500 expected June 2009.

With a launch of I7500, Samsung became the first company among the global top three mobile phone manufacturers to unveil an Android-powered phone. This starts heating things up for all Android team and making a viable challenge to WindowsMobile.

“Samsung is among the earliest members of the Open Handset Alliance and has been actively moving forward to introduce the most innovative Android mobile phone,” said JK Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Mobile Communication Division in Samsung Electronics. “With Samsung’s accumulated technology leadership in mobile phone industry and our consistent strategy to support every existing operating system, I believe that Samsung provides the better choices and benefits to our consumers” he added.

The Samsung I7500 is a cutting-edge smartphone, featuring a 3.2″ AMOLED full touch screen and 7.2Mbps HSDPA and WiFi connectivity, giving users access to Google™ Mobile services and full web browsing at blazing speeds.

The Samsung I7500 offers users access to the full suite of Google services, including Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™, YouTube™, Google Calendar™, and Google Talk™. The integrated GPS receiver enables the comprehensive use of Google Maps features, such as My Location, Google Latitude, Street View, local search and detailed route description. Hundreds of other applications are available in Android Market. For example, the application Wikitude, a mobile travel guide, allows consumers to access details of unknown sights via location-based Wikipedia articles.

Based on Samsung’s proven product leadership, Samsung I7500 comes with latest multimedia features. The large and vivid 3.2″AMOLED display ensures the brilliant representation of multimedia content and enjoyable full touch mobile experience. Along with supporting a 5-megapixel camera and various multimedia codec formats, the I7500 also provides a long enough battery life (1500mAh) and generous memory capacity up to 40GB (Internal memory: 8GB, External memory: Up to 32GB) to enjoy all the applications and multimedia content. The phone also boasts its slim and compact design with mere 11.9mm thickness.

The Samsung I7500 will be available in major European countries from June, 2009.

Nice comparison of the Blackberry Bold against the iPhone from the iPhoneBlog

“When everyone else does it I guess it must be a good idea…” That seems to be the reasoning behind the frenzy to make apps stores these days. Of course Apple is leading the way with their flawed but successful iPhone Store with Microsoft and Google Android playing catch up through a similar stores of their own.

Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the BlackBerry, is set to launch its own one-stop shop for add-on applications.

Third-party applications have long been available for BlackBerrys, RIM has decided to follow in Apple’s footstep by creating and operating a central store. The goal is to cater to those who like their TV, music and MySpace. RIM is clearly going after a demographic that’s different from the executive road warrior who carried the real-time e-mail device around from meeting to meeting years ago. Today’s Blackberry phones come in a number of shapes, sizes and colors.

BlackBerry App World will be available for download from RIM’s website, with a thousand programs initially available at launch.

Unlike Apple’s App Store, BlackBerry App World will share revenue with cell phone carriers and allow them to profile themselves by setting up their own stores-within-the-store.

A smooth move will be that users will also be able to charge application purchases to their cell phone bill.

RIM’s hopes are also based on their touch phone answer to the iPhone being a success. If you like to know more about the touch based Blackberry Storm here is a good video demoing it :

Soon the Mobile World Congress will start in Barcelone (Feb-16 to Feb-19). A lot of new devices running with Android platform should be announced: LG, Samsung, Motorola for phone devices but others devices too (GPS, Portable Media Player…). What can we wait from Apple and his platform?

The Android platform is a new opportunity for business. But there will be business if people are attracted by this new platform.

Some blogs give information about HTC G1 sales and these information are complete different from a website to another. For example, in December 2008 we could see that HTC Dream G1 (the first mobile running with the android platform) was sold out in Novembre (3 weeks after these launch). At the beginning of the year – Feb 2009 – some websites indicate that HTC didn’t sale enough of his G1, under his prediction.

Recently, HTC G1 was available in Germany, Poland and Netherlands. We don’t have information about sales yet. In these countries only T-Mobile provider sales this new phone. Soon, before of Q1, first Android phone should be available in others European countries and in Asian. To summarize, the Android phone (of HTC or another manufacturer) should be present everywhere around the world, even if we don’t know exactly when.

Some people try to compare Android phones and iPhone? Why? Seriously, even if iPhone and Android platform are really new with their functionalities, could we compare both?

iPhone has been launched by Apple with a real huge marketing communication. Android has been launched for Google addicts and I don’t watch HTC G1 ads at TV (There was one in US it’s true).

It’s easy to say that G1 won’t know the same sales as the iPhone. But could we say that Apple phone – using Objective C – will know more sales than Android phones? Nobody knows, but for developers and manufacturers things are different:

• to develop Android application, they don’t need to learn a new specific language (because it uses Java technology)
• to develop Android application, they can do it on different platform and they don’t need to have a Mac chain (Mac OS desktop/laptop and iPhone). Google provides a really good kit to develop, test and debug application.
• Anybody can create his own Android phone without pay taxes or fees
• Developers pay only 25$ to sale all their application

So one thing to do: wait the end of this year to have a first good vision.

Windows mobile have had a huge head start over the likes of the iPhone and lets not even talk about Google Android. Last year around 20 million Windows Mobile units were sold. That is a lot when comparing with other platforms.. but it is way under forecast !

In fact sales have tapered off significantly over the past 18 months. In the fiscal year ended in June 2008, Microsoft sold 18 million licenses, which missed its target by 2 million, but represented a 63 percent increase over year-ago period. But if the 5 million sold in the second quarter is any indication of what is to come, Microsoft might be looking at relatively flat results over the next year. That’s in stark difference to what they had hoped for. In May, Eddie Wu, the software company’s managing director of OEM embedded devices Asia, told Reuters: “50 percent growth is the minimum.”

The reality is that Microsoft should be not just selling more units than its competitors but kicking butt. The problem: Microsoft was quick to target the early adopters in the enterprise segment, but incredibly slow at providing a phone to the mass market. Beyond that their phones just never get that WOW factor that the iPhone has and seems that the new Palm, Blackberry and even the Nokias have.

In the year-plus that Apple has been selling phones, it sold more than 13 million; BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion has been very good at transitioning from offering corporate e-mail on-the-go to consumer-friendly services; and Google has entered the market with its easily personalized Android operating system. Palm has recently launched a new and very competitive operating system. All of these companies became new threats over the last year, right when you see Microsoft’s growth moderate. I am not putting down Microsoft.. quite the contrary I have been an early user. What I am is lamenting that they can’t get their act together. They need to be cutting edge, they need to surprise and make using a Windows Mobile easier, faster, more syncable, more services that are really cool that run on top of it, etc…

Many have asked… Where has the innovator..Palm been?” With all the buzz and hype surrounding the iPhone.. or as some have called it the “Jesus phone” and with the disciples like Samsung Player and other LGs and the never to be counted out RIM BlackBerry, Palm’s been under some heavy duty pressure to come up with something, anything, that could earn it some limelight.

But maybe we were too quick to count them out. Palm’s new intuitive operating system the WebOS and their new touchscreen Pre could very well be Palm’s comeback and why not their biggest seller to date.

The unit (due on Sprint in the first half of this year) will offer a 3.1-inch 480 by 320 touch display, weighs in at 4.8 ounces, and comes with a curved, slide-out keypad. It will offer both Wi-Fi and 3G (EV-DO Rev. A, to be exact), as well as GPS (with turn-by-turn directions courtesy of TeleNav), stereo Bluetooth, 8GB of internal storage, a 3MP camera, a 3.5mm headset jack, and a removable Li-Ion battery.

Many of us are excited or intrigued to really see what the G1, as the new Google Android phone from T-Mobile is commonly called. Well thanks to WDSGlobal you all can right now.

You get a tutorial of what and how to use the entire phone. It is all very well set out and clear.

Really very useful for us in the mobile internet industry so that we can conceptualize what exactly we can do with this new tool.. is Google a threat or a friend for the new social networks popping up or what will the G1 do for content models.. ?? Very nice toy from WDS Global.

More about WDSGlobal:

Since 1995, WDSGlobal has been focused on helping mobile operators, handset manufacturers and content providers meet their customers’ expectations for service and quality. From handset validation and readiness testing to mobile device management and end-user support, WDSGlobal today offers the mobile industry’s most complete solution for the management of subscribers, devices and services.

With dedicated support centers in the UK, USA, South Africa and Australia, no one gets a better view of the complete mobile user experience. Every day, WDSGlobal collects, validates and shares data about devices, services and user behavior, using it to feed GlobalMine – the industry’s most comprehensive knowledge base and foundation for the company’s portfolio of carrier-grade products and services.

The company currently counts over 100 customers, including most of the world’s largest handset manufacturer and mobile operator brands, and is headquartered in Poole, UK. For more information, please visit www.wdsglobal.com

Nokia’s got a plan to sway a few potential iPhone buyers and it’s called the 5800 Xpressmusic.

With touch screen technology, the 5800 XpressMusic introduces the Media Bar, a drop down menu for access to music and entertainment such as tracks, videos and photos. With a single touch, users can track a digital history of recent text messages, emails, phone logs, photos and blog updates.

The 3.2-inch widescreen display offers up a 16 by 9 aspect ratio and 30 frames-per-second playback and recording. It features a 3.2-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. Additional features include a virtual alphanumeric keypad, a virtual computer-style QWERTY keyboard, a pen stylus and a plectrum.

The music player includes a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks, a 3.5mm jack and support for digital music formats and built-in surround sound speakers.

The Finnish cell phone maker hopes to tap looking for a feature set and slim appeal of the iPhone without the steep hardware cost and will sell the 5800 XpressMusic for $395 or free from operators when signing up for a contract.

What I don’t understand is if Nokia and HTC and LG had all this technology to do touch phones and cools products like this.. why didn’t they do it before ? What did they have to wait for Apple, a novice to this market, to come along and show them how it is done… ? That is a mystery for me.