Tired of all the things you can't do with your Android? (I admit, there's not a lot you can't do with it, but...) How about running a "complete" Linux OS in your Nexus One?
Best of all, you're not letting go of your Android, it will still work as always, for all intents and purposes, it will act just like another App... but giving you access to the full power of Ubuntu.
The dock allows you to easily rotate the Nexus into portrait or landscape mode, charges it, has integrated speakers and volume controls, and gives you an easier access to Maps and Navigation, Voice Search, Contacts and Music thanks to the Car Home App that is automatically launched when you put your Nexus in the car dock.
Even if you plan to use another car dock with your Nexus One, you can still use the Car Home app; give it a try.
Google Maps: updated to Google Maps 3.4, which will include:
* Starred items synchronized with maps.google.com
* Search suggestions from your personal maps.google.com history
* Night mode in Google Maps Navigation
Pinch-to-zoom functionality
3G connectivity: we will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity
You'll receive a notification on your Nexus to update it in the coming days (or already have one in your screen right now, if you're lucky :)
iPhone OS 3.1.3 Update
While everyone is expecting a major upgrade to the iPhone OS, Apple comes forth and launches just yet another minor update that deals mostly with security fixes (and bugs jailbreak a bit more.)
Besides a more accurate battery level indicator, we can expect some bug fixes that could cause some apps to crash when using Kana japanese keyboard, or simply fail to launch in some instances.
Touchscreen devices are becoming the norm these days. That's why it becomes increasingly relevant to see how well the first layer of interaction works: and here's a simple test to check yout touchscreen accuracy.
You only need a basic drawing program - available for free for all platforms: iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, etc. - and draw some straight lines, slowly, across the screen.
Depending on your touchscreen accuracy you'll get straight or waving lines, as well as easily detect any rough sports in the corners and edges of the screen.
You already new practically everything there was to know about the new Android Google Nexus One, but a lot of people - myself included - hoped there was going to be something "new" in the official presentation by Google yesterday.
Sadly... there wasn't.
As there already are a lot of sites talking about the hardware specs (which you can see on the official Nexus One site) I'll be talking about "the rest."
This Nexus One is but the first of a series of devices that - and this was the "biggest revelation" - will be sold directly by Google at their new online store: google.com/phone
The fact that these new superphones (as Google wants us to call them) will be sold by Google itself poses some interesting questions: as we all know, Google makes it very hard for anyone person to actually be able to "talk" to someone real. How will they handle customer support? What will happen if your Nexus One breaks down? Will you be able to go directly to Google, or will you be redirected to your operator - or to the device manufacturer (HTC for the Nexus One, but in the future other companies like Motorola, etc.). That's something we'll soon find out.
Regarding the software, the new Android version has some interesting improvements, like the ability to support voice input in any text input box (voice recognition done remotely on Google Servers). And there are also lots of added "3D" cosmetic effects (not particularly useful, but making it look "nice." You can also expect Flash support to come soon. :)
This new Android should be open-sourced in the next few days, and be available for all other Android devices. Let's hope this clears up the "mess" in all the different Android versions out there, and that everyone upgrades to this version soon.
However, one of the strangest Android limitations continues to exist: of the 4GB of available memory on the Nexus One, only 190MB are available to install Apps!
Android really needs to allow Apps to run directly from external memory cards.
To sum things up: the Nexus sure is one of the best (probably the best) Android phone to date. Not really revolutionary, but showing how the platform is evolving and becoming better every day. I'm guess the average consumer will soon understand these "superphones" to be more of powerful pocket computers than actually phones.
While most people were fooled to think the Google Phone turned into a number of different Android models, now we get to know there really is a Google Phone.
As a Christmas Gift, Google offered thousands of Google Phones to its employees and here are the first photos:
It's and HTC built device (codename Nexus One) but, as you can see, there's no HTC logo on it.
In the back, the sticker hides a QR code being waved around like a flag by the small Android robot..
It comes with Android 2.1, which brings more homescreens and some new 3D elements in the interface, as well as Google Maps Navigation and the new Google Googles.
We should soon begin to see some videos of it in action.
