According to this article from ElectricPig, T-Mobile initially had plans of upgrading the OS for its lineup of Android phones by May. And it is already June, and we have no signs of it at all. The initial plans read:-

The HTC Hero / T-Mobile G2 was supposed to get the Android roll out by end of April to beginning of May, which is yet to happen. The T-mobile pulse mini gets the Android 2.1 flavour on April 23 expectedly, and Samsung Galaxy Portal in late May.

Now since, Hero is still yet to see the Eclair roll-out, are we expecting Galaxy Portal’s rollout to be postponed till eternity as well? Also, 3′s launched Galaxy Portal as well in the UK, and from what I’ve heard, all of them run Android 2.1 out of the box.

And seriously, why not let us jump to Froyo straightaway. By the time we are trying to catch up with 2.1, feels like we are obsolete all over again. Thanks T-Mobile, much love.

[ P.S. I tweeted T-Mobile UK asking about the Eclair rollout, no replies yet, and I am sure they will not be replying either].

I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Portal with T-Mobile UK. This is a pretty decent smartphone and is known as the Galaxy Spica worldwide. Now, like other Android phones that Samsung has released so far, this one also sports Android 1.5 Cupcake. While, we keep waiting for the OS to be updated to the now-so-popular Android 2.1 Eclair as seen on the Nexus One, some bloggers have released some scoop on the hacked upgrade to Android 2.1

Whilst this may not be truly official, the results are more than welcome. But then again, would I want to go that route. Still waiting with bated breathe over the official upgrade news. Samsung did release a press release stating that Germany will be getting an official upgrade to 2.1 for the Galaxy Spica, and the rest of Europe will follow soon.

There’s something bugging me in the press release though. It mentions that the official update can be done from Samsung’s New PC Studio 7. I have searched and searched and then some more for the software. The version of the PC Studio that came with my phone is 1.3. And all I could find on Samsung’s mobile website is Kies, or an older version of the PC Studio. This is no good.

It is already the end of March, and no websites or blogs have any news from Germany being able to upgrade their Galaxy Spica to the latest version.

If you have a Galaxy Spica, have you got your OS upgraded to 2.1 yet? Please comment.

If you haven’t been invited yet, you can directly opt to try out Buzz by going to Google Buzz.

GMail has always been awesome with rolling out better and newer features and integrating them right into the inbox. First it was just email, and then came chat, video chat, and with Labs features enabled, we could do much more with our plain old GMail inbox.
GMail Buzz intends to take it to the next level with the integration of other Google services such as Reader, Picasa etc. as well as other social networking services such as Twitter, Flickr all in one place – your inbox. And it is indeed very simple to get started, as seen below I integrated my twitter account.

All this means just one thing; Google is trying to bank on its GMail services to get back into the social networking arena [after Orkut having lost the match to twitter/ facebook etc]. Sharing links, content etc is all going to be integrated in your inbox.

It is also available on your mobile phone. For more details visit this link [ Google Mobile Blog post: Introducing Buzz for Mobile ]

For more details watch the video below.

Courtesy: GMail Blog [ Google Buzz in GMail ]

The 30 odd minutes or so that I got to play around with the Google Nexus One of a friend were one of the fastest 30 minutes on earth. I spent those most precious 30 minutes having a proper run-through the UI, the phones hardware and software and most importantly comparing it with the market leader and benchmark -iPhone 3GS. In this post, we’ll just keep it to what we thought of the Google Nexus One as a phone which stands up for itself.

Screen: Awesome and bright OLED capacitive touchscreen flaunting a 800X480 resolution. The size of the screen is 3.5″ which is a bit smaller than the Droid’s 3.7″. But the OLED means brighter pictures and lesser power consuming – hence longer battery life.

Although the overall design is essentially HTC, the aesthetics of the hardware are appealing. Very curvy and smoothened edges and the back feels non-plasticky, which is always a plus point.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz Processor which translates to smooth transitions in browsing through apps on the phone, better handling of any app and overall smooth experience.

The 5MP camera is not a perfect one, certainly not a replacement for your point-and-shoot camera. The LED Flash is handy for taking images under dark light, but do not expect excellent picture quality. But to be fair, we have not seen any mobile phone camera powerful enough to replicate the picture quality of a dedicated camera. Under proper lighted conditions, the camera performed well.

The latest Android 2.1 on the Nexus One hasn’t been seen on any other Android based phone, and would require much more exploring to find out its full potential.

We’ll be comparing the Nexus One with the Apple iPhone very soon in a future post. Until then,  shout out in the comments what you think about the Nexus One.

For all the people who have craving for an Android Phone, but still holding back due to unwilligness to shell out megabucks on the Motorola Milestone or the new Google Nexus One, here’s some good news. Unlike HTC’s smaller screen HTC Tatoo, or T-mobile Pulse, LG’s newly launched LG InTouch GW620 is just right for your pocket. Similar to other smartphones of the Android genre, it has a 3 inch touchscreen with QWERTY keyboard.

The customised Android interface sports a social-networking app called Linkbook, which integrates Facebook and Twitter accounts. The Android build is an earlier one [possibly Android 1.5 or 1.6] and hence, does not support Flash [but well, you can root it]. Other goodies included are the 3.5mm jack, Wi-Fi, 5MP camera and Micro-SD slot to increase the storage space and most importantly, an HSDPA internet.

The pricing revealed are quite attractive too. The phone comes for free with T-mobile 24 month contract at £20 a month -unlimited data. But the best deal is with Virgin Media -18 month contract at £18 a month -unlimited text and data.

Certainly a good buy for entry-level smartphone buyers. No news on the specifications of the phone such as screen type -capacitive or resistive and Android Marketplace support.

On the pro side, this phone has some awesome features of its own which is completely different from the Android 2.0 version it houses. The UI is absolutely different, and on-screen widgets and a very Palm Pre Web-OS-esque card view task manager. The applications menu is definitely inspired by the Apple iPhone, although the icons are all circular.

The homescreen brings forward an array of options for contacting your contacts – via. a mobile call, email, IM or text in a pretty flower design.

The accessory that houses the keyboard is a dock for charging and is ideal for making conference calls. It has dual cameras ideal for video chats, and the rear one is a 3mp.

It also has a Snapdragon Processor similar to the Google Nexus One.

On the down side, this phone does not support Android’s marketplace.

No news about the international date of launch in the US,UK or anywhere else. Currently, Lenovo plans to launch it first in China.

Have a look at the Crunchgear CES hands on video after the jump and get ready to be impressed. And also a bonus video courtesy Mobileburn. Also lots of LePhone glamour photos for your viewing pleasure.

CrunchGear Hands On Video:

Mobileburn: Lenovo LePhone demo:

Glamour Shots of the Lenovo LePhone:

Stan Schroeder from Mashable raised an interesting question of the frequency of visitors now to the main homepage of Google, i.e. Google.com ( etc. depending upon your geographical location). It is true that with browsers which have in-built search functionality in the address bars viz. Chrome and Opera, the middle layer of the Google homepage has been largely eliminated. Add to that, other browsers like Firefox, IE and Safari include a search bar. It’s pretty safe to state that the entire spectrum has been covered. So, is anyone really using Google homepage and why?

One of the major reasons for people still using the Google homepage is that fossilised browser that it still breathing. Yes, IE6. There are no search bars, and the only option to search is Google. Of course, users here would be able to install Google Toolbars and stuff. According to W3counter statistics, as of Sep 2009, IE6 still maintains the fourth position in browser usage share with 13.28%, behind IE7, Firefox and IE8. It is difficult to segment the share of people out of this percentage who use search solely through Google’s homepage. There were no Google toolbar statistics to help us out.

Secondly, mobile devices and gaming devices have their own apps to surf and search through the Google search engine. So no interference here from the homepage.

Having said that, we must not forget the technological knowledge of the common user which cannot be gauged properly by us who use Google 24X7 in our address bars and are very conversant even with the exact syntaxes of Google hacks. If I was to tell my mom to search for anything over the phone, I’d just say Google it. And the first thing she’d do is to go to Google.com. The percentage of users who go to Google.com by default is also not only influenced by the ease that Google’s homepage suggests, but also by habit. Of course, we by now are quite used to typing straight away in the addressbar. But who will install Chrome on my mom’s laptop?

And lastly, I don’t believe that people return to Google for the doodles. Those doodles are just buzz creating tributes to legends and historical figures, and in a way one of those brand marketing exercises which never fails. The blogosphere will never fail to mention them, and other bloggers who read them will surely give it a visit. [ Guilty as charged. See here, here, here, here and here].

So, did I give you enough reasons already? Shout it out in the comments.

Let us keep this straight and simple. iGoogle is the preferred homepage for all of us Googlers. Yes, that is indeed a word. We love our Google Search right above all our Google fodder, from Mail, News, Docs, even Twitter Gadgets and Flash Games Time Wasters; the list of Gadgets is endless. And all of this has been served in a stylised Theme package.

The new addition to this list of stylised themes is the Comics package – for the Superman or Iron Man fan in you. For the Batman Lovers or the Wonder Woman worshippers, don’t worry. There’s room for you too. Google even changed their homepage logo to a DC Character ensemble on the 23rd July, dedicated to the ongoing Comic Con in San Diego, California. A list of my favorite ones are given below. Just click on the links to explore the themes and hope you enjoy them. Cheers! [Click on the Link to go to the Theme Page]

1.Peanuts

More themes after the Jump.

2. Superman: World of New Krypton

3. Batman Reborn

4.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

5. HellBoy

6. Last but not the least, Iron Man.