The Androids are Coming!!!

Yeah I know what you're thinking -- you're thinking that I've lost it, eh? I'm seeing little androids riding by on skate-boards. Guess what? SO ARE YOU!

This is what happens when you spend just a little too much time studying about two gigabytes of source code in preparation for writing an article with a due date that was shortened by a month. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I love this kind of work, so let the androids party on dude!

T-Mobile G1 Android Cellphone

My new T-Mobile G1 Android cellphone (developer's version) arrived yesterday (on my Birthday no less!) and I've been working with it all evening and all night - it's now 3:35 AM.

Background information: I live and work where T-Mobile access doesn't exist, so I can't use the cellphone as a cellphone, at least until Verizon gets their act together and allows it to work on their network. I've been a Verizon customer for many years and this is the only area where they greatly disappoint me - not allowing customers to use their own unlocked phones.

But since the G1 is a Wifi machine, and there is information on the Internet of how to set up and configure the G1 without actually having a phone account, I was quickly able to set it up to use my Wifi and then register the machine.

I've been working for a few months with the Android Emulator and it's a real pleasure to now be able to actually work on a real machine!

First impressions:

1. It's a smaller and more solid machine than I was expecting. The quality of it is HIGH - well done HTC and T-Mobile!!!
2. The audio quality is incredible! One of the first things that I did was to copy 1 GB of my favorite MP3 songs to the microSD card that came with it and play the music.
3. The machine is very fast and responsive - I downloaded from the "Android Market" a few tools - Terminal, System Monitor, Weather Channel, etc. When playing my songs, the CPU barely blips at 24% - WOW!
4. Speaking of the "Android Market", I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a HUGE number of FREE programs available for instant download and usage. A+++ for Google!

Combine the open source architecture, solid hardware, fast CPU and memory, this machine has immediately captured my attention. I look forward to building on this foundation myself with programs, articles, and hopefully I will someday be able to use it as a PHONE too!