It’s a [FEATURED] fantasy today! We’ve got columns and special posts by the barrel-full, and you’re gonna love em! First thing in the morning we got a pre-noon delivery from the FedEx truck – what did the FedEx man bring for us to unbox and get our hands on? A NOOKcolor, fresh off the factory line! Then we write a couple of columns: one on the raging state of the Tablets market, and one on the current quick-paced state of political news. Then Josh Marinacci says webOS will be available soon for ALL Palm devices, there’s a White iPhone 4 sale in China, and the feature stream begins. Last night our man Vince was at PEPCOM and brought back video demos of Gorilla Glass, a three screen monitor from Samsung, and a NOOKcolor. Finally (there’s more?!) the last installment of Evan’s Week with the HTC HD7 is up – Xbox LIVE! All this and even MORE on The Daily Slash!
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Today’s item of interest in The Daily Slash is a quote from the Professor / Writer / Inventer of the Internet Tim Berners-Lee as he writes an article called “Long Live the Web” about defending the Internet against those who would limit it in a variety of ways. I suggest you read the entire thing because it’s a masterfully written statement and it concerns us all, all of us internetlings.
Why should you care? Because the Web is yours. It is a public resource on which you, your business, your community and your government depend. The Web is also vital to democracy, a communications channel that makes possible a continuous worldwide conversation. The Web is now more critical to free speech than any other medium. It brings principles established in the U.S. Constitution, the British Magna Carta and other important documents into the network age: freedom from being snooped on, filtered, censored and disconnected.
HTC has publicly released the source code for the Android 2.1 firmware build of their Hero smartphone, opening the door to a new batch of hacks and modifications. Available through the HTC Developer site, the firmware is also accompanied by the kernel for the HTC EVO 4G.
Both handsets are now running Android 2.1 with the Sense UI. If you’re wanting Android 2.1 on your Hero, meanwhile, as it’s still running the original 1.5 build, an OTA update has been going out recently; make sure your phone is charged, powered on and preferably connected via WiFi and you should be offered the update.
False starts aside, that promised late June Android 2.1 upgrade for the GSM version of the HTC Hero is finally here — for unlocked models, anyhow. It seems that users are being greeted with an update clocking in at nearly 80MB, and despite HTC’s own warning to the contrary, apps aren’t being wiped, so you should be able to undertake the endeavor pretty safely. Orange and T-Mobile versions of the phone apparently haven’t yet begun to see the rollout, but the wait shouldn’t be terribly long now — meanwhile, let us know how your upgrade experience goes in comments, folks.
HTC are paving the way for the promised HTC Hero Android 2.1 firmware update to European handsets, though the new OS package itself is not yet in the wild. A new OTA update for the Hero has been announced which upgrades the smartphone’s “Firmware over-the-air (FOTA) client” (along with making unspecified tweaks to the YouTube player app); that’s likely the first part of what we’ve previously heard is a two-stage update process.
Update: HTC has been in touch with an official statement – find it after the cut.
We’re not yet seeing any sign of this first update package being offered to our Hero (which is still running the stock Android 1.5 firmware) though some Android Community members claim to have artificially prompted its install by changing the date to one month into the future and restarting their phone. As for the Android 2.1 package itself for the Hero, the exact release date for that is still unknown; HTC maintain that it will only arrive sometime this month.
“Android Éclair update for HTC Hero will be released by the end of June. The upgrade will come in two parts, the first of which will roll out from this week and will be detected when the Hero next automatically checks for software updates. The second part of the update will follow towards the end of the month. As the second part of the upgrade will wipe all data on the handset, Hero users should ensure any important data has been backed up before proceeding with the installation. Due to the size of the update, wherever possible, we would advise using a WiFi connection for this download to avoid additional data charges.”
It’s been a long, painful, drawn-out process, but it looks like we’re finally closing in on getting everyone with an HTC Hero around the globe covered with Eclair. The company’s European outpost has just posted some details on its Android 2.1 over-the-air update for the 2100MHz 3G Hero sold in most of the continent (including separate builds for units in Nordic countries, Greece, and Ireland), so this should quite a lot of brewing discontent — just in time for owners to develop a raging case of Froyo envy, that is. C’est la vie; time for a Legend, right?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: We’ve heard from our friends at CoolSmartPhone that this is just another minor update, amazingly — not the 2.1 build that other Hero owners are enjoying. What gives, HTC?
Update 2: And now HTC has gotten in touch with us directly, describing a two-part (the first of which seems to have already begun) end of June release. See it after the break.
HTC Taiwan have announced that, starting today, the Android 2.1 update for the GSM HTC Hero will be going out via OTA distribution. Affecting only Taiwanese handsets at present, the news nonetheless suggests that HTC are ramping up for a more general release of the long-awaited software.
Last we heard – all the way back in March – HTC had been aiming for an early-April release; that came and went, and of course in the meantime Google have announced Android 2.2 Froyo. Still, the updated OS – even if it isn’t the very latest – would be very welcome on the Hero, since it’s still currently running Android 1.5 (with HTC’s Sense customizations).
In its day, the HTC Hero with its brand new Sense UI and browser with Flash Lite was a breakthrough, multitouch Android handset. As such, it quickly became a big seller for HTC and the carriers that sold it. Now one year later, owners of the GSM variant are still waiting for their chance at the latest Android 2.1 update. As a harbinger of things to come (we hope), the Hero 2.1 update just landed in HTC’s home country of Taiwan. Unfortunately, this will likely be the last update Hero owners receive… via official channels, anyway.
AMOLED screens have once again come in for attention over concerns regarding image quality, as Tweakers took two HTC Legends into the lab to demonstrate the issues they have displaying grayscale correctly. The Legend – shown here snuggling with an Apple iPod touch and an HTC Hero – apparently proved unable to show regular grayscale, instead offering up a range of muted pinks, grays, greens and browns.
The Legend’s screen brightness was also a cause for concern, mustering 253 cd/m2 in comparison to the Hero’s 310 cd/m2. Both the Hero and the iPod touch use a more traditional LCD panel, rather than the AMOLED technology used in the Legend and its larger sibling the HTC Desire.
Unfortunately Tweakers didn’t have a Desire to hand to include in the testing, though anecdotal reports from some owners suggest it too has patchy grayscale support. One point where the AMOLED displays do deliver is in blacks, however, out-performing both other devices in testing.
Sprint’s HTC Hero has finally got its update to Android 2.1, complete with a refettled version of HTC Sense to suit the new OS. The update is being rolled out OTA (over-the-air) but can also be downloaded from Sprint’s support site and installed via HTC Sync on a PC.
However, it’s worth noting that installing the Sprint Hero Android 2.1 update will delete all content from the device in the process. That means performing a backup of any data you’re unwilling to lose is essential; if you’re a PC user then you can use HTC Sync to do that.
The update apparently takes around 25 minutes to complete, and of course you won’t be able to make or receive calls while it’s in process. Firmware 2.27.651.5 delivers various bug fixes and OS tweaks, as well as voice recognition and improved corporate email synchronization.
Assuming you resisted the temptation to either root your Hero or update it with the recently leaked 2.1 firmware, this is your very first chance to finally slap a dash of Android future on your senescent device. Sprint has at long last made the update available, though it isn’t quite yet ready to download from its site. Fear not, the good folks behind the yellow network have put together a guide on upgrading through your phone and we’ll link up the download as soon as it’s ready for consumption. Time to start enjoying that Google Maps Navigation magic and all the other goodies constituting Eclair‘s delectable filling.
