Good news regarding Android fragmentation. More and more devices are running Android 2.1. And while that isn’t the latest version, it’s still in a whole different class compared to 1.6 or 1.5, which at this point should really be on the way out. That is, of course, unless phone manufacturers insist on bringing other new Android 1.6 devices to market. Google should still probably impose an end-of-life for each version, to prevent its hardware partners from releasing products with obsolete versions of the OS, but the situation seems to be more or less taking care of itself, albeit very slowly.
55.5% of Android devices are currently on 2.1. Only 3.3% are on Android 2.2 (at this point, that’s only the Nexus One). 1.5 and 1.6 together still represent 41% of the total, but at least they’re not the majority anymore. Android’s version fragmentation issue is very real, there’s no denying that. However, given time, the situation might not be as bad as some anticipated. The true test will be in Q4, when the next version of Android is due out. 1.5 and 1.6 will clearly still be around, and then the charts have the potential to become a lot more messy.
You can now download the final version of Opera 10, a browser that has been in beta for some time. The most significant feature of Opera 10 is Opera Turbo, a compression engine that makes data transactions faster by simply reducing the amount of information transferred. Opera claims to be 8X faster in bandwidth-limited conditions.
Obviously, more things have evolved, including the user interface, the spell checking and many other things. That said, Opera is already working on future improvements like Unite, an embedded web server that lets people share data easily, or faster Java performance, which comes in handy on Web 2.0 sites like Facebook. Opera 10 is free.
Most of us ignored the star news at the I/O Conference when the Google wave hits the rock at the conference. The star news is 18 new Android phones are being ready by Google with its partner by the end of this year. 20 more new headsets are also expected to be launched by Google.
News was declared only after Google revealed that the Android platform is growing fast with a substantial 5,000 odd applications available for the platform as of now.
iPhone consists of 35000 apps though 5000 is also not a small amount of apps. The developer interest and more apps can be seen as the number of phones is increasing on a daily basis.
All the companies working closely with Google have made the 18 handsets of New Google Android phones interests the most. Other manufacturers are trying to make the devices made by using Basic Android system.
Google’s debut web browser, Chrome, exited its beta form back in December of last year and now the company is ready to release version 2.0 of the software.
Included above is an informational video released by Google detailing the changes featured in version 2.0. As you can see, the feature list isn’t exactly extensive with the video showcasing the ability to remove thumbnails, go into a new full screen mode and use the new auto correct feature.
Android is mainly associated with smartphones, but that doesn’t mean Google won’t try to bring the OS to other platforms. The Mountain View giant has just set up an Android team somewhere in Taiwan, with the said purpose of providing technical support to local hardware manufacturers that want to develop products based on Android – including (apart from smartphones) netbooks and embedded systems.
Yahoo Messenger has started to include ads in their instant messaging chat window, and according to Yahoo, “Ads in Yahoo Messenger will allow us to put even more resources behind developing and delivering valuable free features and services. Yahoo Messenger is a free service to our users, and our goal is to provide a useful and relevant experience while ensuring this is a profitable business for Yahoo. Yahoo is inherently an advertising-driven business.”
Google has fixed a minor problem that iPhone users might have been experiencing over the last few days. If you searched Google via the toolbar in Mobile Safari, you would be presented with Google’s standard non-iPhone-formatted results page.
BlackBerry users will now have a new application to play with – Google Mobile App for BlackBerry. This app will bundle Google’s search function together with Google’s other BlackBerry apps and its online mobile services such as Google Mail, Google Maps and Google Sync, all for your BlackBerry. With a simple way to access so many of Google’s services, it’s easy to imagine that this app will be a hit very soon.
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