Dominating the Android world this week was the announcement by handset giant HTC that it will be releasing the most innovative phone to date using the OS by Google, the HTC Hero. This thin, curvy handset shares some of the features of the Android-powered HTC Magic, also known as the myTouch 3G, such as a 3.2-inch touchscreen. It will also sport an onscreen keyboard, like the iPhone.

But what sets the HTC Hero apart from all the other Android phones, be they already released or under development, is the user interface. Dubbed HTC Sense, it allows HTC to give its phones a uniform look regardless of the operating system being used. Sense is also designed to be configured by the user to fit their individual needs.

One of the features of Android that has been lauded by enthusiasts is its tight integration with Google services like Gmail. But by forgoing the standard Android interface, OS updates that are pushed to users over the air can’t be applied to the Hero; owners of the Hero will instead have to rely on HTC to provide them. This could set the stage for OS version fragmentation in the Android world that we have warned against.

HTC, maker of many of the most popular phones in the Android and Windows Mobile markets, today unveiled the HTC Hero. While the hardware on this Android-based smartphone is as good as anything out there, of particular interest is the new user interface, dubbed HTC Sense, which is both touch-optimized and organizes the user’s needs around the people with which they interact — a bit like the Palm Pre.

Most importantly, however, the Sense interface isolates the operating system from the user. Such an approach allows HTC to produce phones that are distinctly their own, function-wise, no matter what OS is used to power them. This is a smart move on HTC’s part, as obligations to carriers may dictate that a certain OS to be used on a given phone but a common interface lets HTC retain its own look and feel. We wouldn’t be surprised to see HTC Sense appear on Windows Mobile phones the company produces in the future.

The HTC Hero will be available in Europe in July and in Asia later this summer. A North American version will be out later this year.

Android so far is only on a few phones, but some want to put the Google OS on bigger devices. Yet just as analysts are starting to believe in the suitability of Android to run netbooks, chipmaker Nvidia is backing off the OS for the newly emerged smartbook category.

Analysts at Gartner have gone on record stating that Android is a viable alternative for netbooks. The OS isn’t quite ready to run on devices with screens larger than phones, but they’re confident it will be soon, providing a good alternative to Windows and Linux, either of which can be found in all netbooks currently on the market. Applications will play a big part in providing the functions that consumers need from netbooks and there are already some decent apps in the Android Market that could drive its adoption. Continue »

The Android world may have been overshadowed by the release of the Palm Pre and specs of the new iPhone this week, but developments for the Google phone OS continued unabated. A new way to build simple apps for Android was released, and word came that not only may commercial e-books soon be joining the Android Market, but T-Mobile might be launching its next Android phone this month.

Google this week released the Android Scripting Environment (ASE), which is a platform for creating simple apps. A full scripting environment like ASE will make it much easier for OEMs to customize Android phones without a big development effort, which should result in some interesting releases. A post on O’Reilly shows a sample script to scan barcodes in Android that only takes six lines of code.

TmoNews has a “very trusted source” that the next T-Mobile Android phone, the myTouch, will be appearing in June. The myTouch is unconfirmed but is expected to be the HTC Magic, which has already appeared on the HTC web site. The HTC Magic is essentially the T-Mobile G1 without the physical keyboard, along with some other, minor differences.

And a Palm Pre version of the cloud-based mobile note-taking app Evernote was announced, which has some Android enthusiasts a little miffed. Android is now the only major platform for which Evernote hasn’t announced a version at least in development. It’s a bit strange that Evernote chose to work with the WebOS Pre and not Android, which has been out far longer.

The mobile tech arena is as diversified as it’s ever been, and consumers are finally latching onto the idea of portable computing. Smartphones have upped their capabilities to the point where some folks now use them as their web device on the go; the portability of netbooks lets others carry a full computer anywhere. Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) also are trying to gain a foothold in the consumer space, and the plain old notebook is still hanging around. All of these devices bring a lot of functionality to the user — but with various degrees of convenience.

A new report from Forrester Research attempts to determine what types of devices are considered the most convenient for the average user. The report looks at how each type of device performs with applications, working in the cloud and its portability. A key finding, in my opinion: The so-called netbook v2.0, or the second-generation netbook, outscored the standard laptop in many areas, and was found to be almost as convenient to use as its bigger sibling. The report describes these v2.0 netbooks that will be appearing over the next 12 months as having “more powerful CPUs and graphics engines; Windows 7 running on the devices; and embedded mobile broadband.” It’s an interesting observation — and one we should begin to prove or disprove right away as these v2.0 netbooks are already starting to appear.

More companies readied their Android phones for release this week, while others were hard at work figuring out how to use the operating system in non-phone devices.

Handset maker HTC revealed that it’s helping AT&T get ready to join the Android team with a new phone. The HTC Lancaster is a slider phone that looks a lot like the G1 that HTC made for T-Mobile but with a Windows Mobile bent: HTC is including on the Lancaster a special Android social messaging interface for consumers. It’s expected to hit stores in August. Continue »

Android anticipation continued to pick up steam this week, fueled in part by Google executive Andy Rubin’s proclamation that 18-20 smartphones based on the OS would be released later this year, by some 8-9 different manufacturers. Rubin also shed light on how the OEMs must sign an agreement with the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), the consortium behind Android, to include Google software such as Gmail on their devices.

Smartphone king HTC, maker of the T-Mobile G1, is hard at work on other handsets based on the Google juice, including versions of the HTC Magic that will include Microsoft Exchange support. The Exchange client is part of what one HTC executive called the company’s own “special sauce.” We fear, however, that such a mixture might lead to Android upgrade difficulties down the road if Google and the OHA don’t take steps to avoid them.

And this week saw T-Mobile G1 customers start receiving Android 1.5, aka Cupcake. Reviews of the new version, the over-the-air rollout of which had been briefly delayed, have been favorable so far. Android 1.5 adds video recording and an on-screen keyboard, the latter being especially important as handsets without physical keyboards, like the HTC Magic, are expected to increasingly start to appear.