Android 2.1 Available In Alaska Next Week

After many months of waiting patiently, Alaskans who has ACS as their carrier will finally get to experience Android 2.1 for their HTC Hero's on 6/29.

ACS announced the availability of the update today through their Facebook page, just a day after announcing that their customers will soon be able to buy the HTC Desire and the Motorola Milestone through ACS.

It’s ready! We are very excited to announce the Android 2.1 update will be available for ACS customers this Tuesday (6/24). A link to the update file and instructions will be posted here that morning. Thank you all for your patience, I know it has been a long wait.

Although 6/24 is set as the date in the official post, a later comment corrected this to 6/29.

Not to be outdone, GCI, the local competitor that beat ACS with their Desire/Milestone announcement, posted a tweet while this post was being written outlining similar intentions.

We're also pleased to announce that Android 2.1 for HTC Hero users will be coming next week. Look here for more on that early next week.

Overall, this is good news for customers of both carriers, both of which will be able to take advantage of the new features of 2.1. If you have a Hero, I suggest you get ready.

Sources:

• ACS Facebook
• GCI Twitter

HTC Hero 2.1 Update Delayed In Alaska

The last week, the news have leaked out around the country that the Android 2.1 upgrade for the HTC Hero for various carriers has been delayed. Sprint seems to have taken the most public step back by announcing that the update will now be available in Q2 2010 as opposed to this month.

How does this affect those of us that live in Alaska? Well, not surprisingly, both ACS and GCI has announced on their Facebook pages that the upgrade has been delayed for their customers as well. Although this is certainly a disappointment since it seemed to be right around the corner, at least it's reassuring to know that all the bugs are being worked out first.

Of course, if you want more of Android 2.1 for your Hero right now (being the impatient society that we are), check out this review of a leaked 2.1 ROM over at Android Police. With a walk-through of the new features and a ton of screenshots, it will only get you more excited about something you don't have yet.

On a side note, the delay does bring up an interesting question. Does this delay have anything to do with the coming release of Android 2.2?

An Unexpected Discovery - HTC Hero as a Modem Using Wifi

Those that own the HTC Hero and have done just some brief digging around in the wireless settings have without a doubt found the Mobile Network Sharing option. For those unfamiliar with this option, it essentially allows you to use your Hero as a modem for your computer. Simply connect your phone to your computer, check the check box next to the Mobile Network Sharing option and enjoy. It works great on my Ubuntu based laptop and on my XP laptop.

The other day I noticed something unexpected. I can tether my Hero using USB with a Wifi hotspot instead of the 3G connection.

It all happened by chance. I was trying to access a hotspot but for some reason my laptop just refused to connect.  I figured I'd just connect my phone and computer and just use the 3G network. As it turned out, the 3G connection was unstable that one day so I still couldn't get online. 

By complete chance, I was hitting some settings in the phone and happened to enable Wifi and Internet Sharing stayed on (typically this option is grayed out unless mobile network data is enabled). To my surprise, the Hero let me use the Wifi connection with my computer. It was as if my 3G modem had turned into a Wifi card.

Tonight, I tried to reproduce this again and found something curious. As I mentioned above, the Mobile Sharing option is not available if the mobile data connection is disabled. It can however be done.

1) Connect to a hotspot using the Wifi connect

2) Enable mobile network data

3) Enable mobile sharing

At this point, something interesting happens. With the Wifi connection active, the mobile network data connection remains in standby. Since it's checked to be on, mobile sharing is also available to check in step 3 but the actual connection being used is the Wifi connection. Once you disconnect the Wifi connection, the mobile connection picks right up.

Anyway, I'm not sure if this is useful to anyone else. Typically, all laptops have Wifi already but should you need to connect a computer to a Wifi network and you happen to have a HTC Hero handy that doesn't have a 3G connection at the moment, it can double as your Wifi connection as well.

Interesting...

Swype - A Revolutionary Touchscreen Input Method?

Having joined the horde of Android users with my HTC Hero, I have never had much of an issue using the default on-screen keyboard for the Hero. I do know that others hate it, some dislike it and others are just like me. They don't mind.

However, the other day I was made aware of Swype. No, it's no typo, it's not supposed to be Skype although it could potentially help Skype users at some point.

So, what is Swype? In a nutshell, it's a new input method for touch-screen devices. Let me explain.

Normally on the Hero and many other touch-screen phones, a keyboard is produced on screen and you enter your message by punching the keys on the screen. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it doesn't. Combine it with predictive text and it's usually not too bad. Still, it's not ideal.

Swype takes the on screen keyboard to the next level. Instead of forcing you to hit each button, you simply "swype" all the characters of the word you're typing. On screen, it looks like you're drawing a continuous line on the keyboard and essentially, this is exactly what you do. To enter the word "swype" you start on the letter "s" and then just play connect the dots with all your letters, basically drawing a line from "s" to "w" and so on. The software then predicts what word you're trying to type.

I know, it sounds a little hard to believe and once you start using it, it almost seems like magic. That's how well it works! I've found that using Swype, my text input speed has increased significantly and there are rarely errors either.

So, if you're an Android user, do yourself a favor and try the beta over at http://www.swypeinc.com.

Android or Blackberry

Since the arrival of the Android platform in Alaska, I have been torn between my trusty Blackberry Curve and the HTC Hero. Do I give up what has worked well for so long just to get something new a flashy. It's a difficult choice and a comparison is worth making to see what you get with each.

Let's begin with Blackberry.

Blackberry from RIM has traditionally been a very corporate oriented device. Many of the features of the phone still cater to that market but they have made great progress in the consumer market as well with some of these same features.

E-mail is the one thing where the Blackberry rules supreme in my opinion. With regular Blackberry service, you can connect up to ten e-mail accounts to your Blackberry, from free accounts such as Yahoo, Gmail etc., to POP accounts and Exchange server accounts. Pretty much within seconds of receiving an email in your inbox, it's pushed to the phone. In addition, RIM has integrated several social networks into this push technology so whenever you have a new message on Facebook or MySpace and soon Twitter, the phone lets you know. You no longer need to check your e-mail or social networks, it's all there when something new is available.

Browsing has always been one of the downfalls of the Blackberry. Although browsing supposedly takes up less bandwidth, a feature that carriers surely love, it doesn't make it more appealing if things such as basic page layout and flash doesn't work. To RIM's credit, they have recognized this dilemma and have introduced a Webkit based browser that eventually will be available. Until then, however, we're stuck with the default one or one of the third party ones such as Opera or Bolt.

Until just over a year ago, the Blackberry did not have an app store. To find apps, they had to be downloaded online and installed to the phone through the Desktop Manager or just simply downloaded directly to the phone itself. With the introduction of the App World, this has largely changed and you can now find tons of apps in the Blackberry App World. However, the unfortunate thing is that the App World (at least on my Curve) is slow to download, slow to update and just a drag to use. It does what it needs to do but not very well. The highlight is the lists of top free and top paid apps. They come in handy.

The data service on my Blackberry has always been sufficient for e-mail, the browsing I do as well as streaming music. However, I've always been aware that with EVDO speeds, although fast, it just hasn't always cut it. For example, downloading large amounts of RSS feeds using Vlingo can take a bit.

Enter the HTC Hero, running Android.

Android is a new OS, hip and here to compete with the iPhone crowd. Being touch-based, it easily allows you to navigate around and do what you need to do with just the flick of a finger.

Just like the Blackberry, the Hero supports multiple e-mail accounts. Being a Google system, a Gmail is a must to download apps etc., so if you already have a Gmail account as your primary e-mail, this will be a perfect match. Some accounts can be a bit touch and go. Hotmail works fine while Yahoo does not. Regular POP accounts and Exchange accounts also work fine yet they all share one common thing: e-mail is not pushed immediately to your phone as it is on the Blackberry. For someone that has gotten used to getting constant updates, this is a big change. Fortunately, there is software out there that allows you to get similar functionality (Seven is an app that does that) and with that, Yahoo functionality is also suddenly available. Even so I do have to say that the e-mail experience on the Blackberry is much slicker.

The Hero definitely takes browsing to another level. With pinching and all that fun finger stuff for zooming in and out as well as a browser that's blazing fast, browsing on the Hero is a joy for the most part. With limited Flash support, some more advanced pages even show up much better than on the Blackberry. Together with the EVDO Rev.A data speeds, things like full screen YouTube is now very possible and also very enjoyable.

The Android Market adds what I feel is very much missing on the Blackberry I have. A fast app store loaded with tons of apps I would actually use and an easy way to install and uninstall everything. The one thing I do miss is the top free and top paid apps, that would be great to have.

I've already mentioned the data service a bit and it's worth mentioning again. The Rev.A data service on the Hero provides a platform that quickly gets you what you need, whether it's YouTube videos, apps or websites. Streaming music or video works very well and if data service is not available you can always switch to WiFi and utilize other connections that may be available. Together with the Android OS, the high data speeds gives you a device that's a pleasure to use.

Of course, there are many other things we could look at but those are the primary areas that concern me in the decisions that I make. One other big thing is that the Curve is a phone with a physical keyboard while the Hero has no physical keyboard and instead uses on-screen touch keyboards. Although a touch keyboard is a very different experience, I've found it to be usable enough that I won't miss the physical keyboard of the Curve.

In other words, I expect to be getting myself a Hero, quite soon.