Peel?

There's this new device that just recently received FCC clearance. Its a small package from Sprint called the Peel, and what this nifty little device can do is turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone. Well sorta. See, it uses Sprints own 3G network, albeit the slower kind, and routs it to a device that can snuggly fit into the casing. The space seems oddly reminiscant of, lets say, apple's own top notch media player. If you catch my drift. Even having the headphone jack on the bottom right. It can also tether internet to up to 5 different devices. So far it has its own battery, charging via mini usb, although no word yet if it charges the device. Earlier a Chinese variant was released which charged the device and was made specifically for the iPod Touch. Still not sure here though. Hopefully more news of this comes out soon, because I already tether my Android phone to my iPod Touch, and if this comes out, it's bye bye Verizon for good.

**News and image courtesy of engadget**

KaosFroyo

First off, i'd like to apologize for a very late blog post. I've been working full shifts at my job and its been taking a toll on me. So without further adeu, lets begin with my first Rom review.

I've had my rooted Eris for about 2 weeks now. In my course I've downloaded and installed about 4 roms. Out of the 4, I have to say, the one with the LEAST problems was KaosFroyo vs 23 and 24. KaosFroyo takes the Cyanogenmod 6.0 which runs a ported version of Froyo 2.2 and runs it on the HTC Droid Eris. Overall performance of the rom was very smooth. SetCPU worked nicely in overclocking the processor to 710 mhz safely. Screen scrolling was smooth. Applications ran well. I saw limited FC's in using many of the stock apps, although I did have issues with the Gallery 3D app, although that reason is for the hardware. Using it along with ATK is your best bet, killing background apps that just cause clutter. Live wallpapers work, but only a limited few. Some things that don't work are wireless tethering (the main reason im not using it anymore) and the camera preview on the main camera app. You can use CameraMagic to bypass that if you insist on needing the preview, although you dont necessarily need it. I found video recording to be extremely choppy though, but I didn't use that too much.

All in all it's a good rom, with good stability and good upgrade timing. I was using v 23 at the time and as soon as I was almost done it updated to v24 and left me with it longer because it was so good. I mainly don't use this anymore because wireless tethering isn't working at the moment, which is something I use for my iPod Touch (shhh don't judge). Next time I'm going to review the Evil Eris rom or the Aloysius rom. I'll figure it out. This week i'm working full time again so my update might take a while. Until next time, take care!

Iphone 4 fail report

Its funny how you lose respect for a company when they try to half ass themselves out of a situation by pointing fingers at others. And that my friends is what Apple pretty much did today in their press event. Pretty much they said:

"Hey metrosexual iPhone users who drive a Prius or BMW and look like Ross from friends, were not perfect, but these lower end phones that can hardly compare to our phone are just as bad as ours are in terms of signal strength, so heres an iPhone 4 bumper so you can please stfu about our fail and leave us alone now. kthnxbai?"

Seriously Apple? You have the audacity to compare your product to the Samsung Omnia 2 (people actually bought that phone?) and the HTC Droid Eris? Both btw are VERIZON phones, who's favorite catchphrase isn't "hello, are you still there" like it is for iPhones, but "can you hear me now? Good :]". Sorry for the bash but come on, at least take responsibility and admit that you screwed up the algorithms in your design. Its the least you can do at most, considering you released a new phones that is ALREADY behind the curve. Come on, ever since the release of the Nexus One, EVERY android phone that went against an iPhone during CNet's prize fight has always defeated the iPhone. Even the iPhone 4 lost the HTC Evo 4G.

However, at least they gave users the option to get a full refund of their phone or a free bumper. Which is what they should have done in the beginning of the press release. I could hardly give a flying **** about the sales or the comparison in dropped calls with the 3GS or your excuses or your finger pointing. All I was interested in hearing was how you planned on fixing this issue. Come one Apple. Next time don't half-ass a product just because it looks pretty. Please?

Discrepancies?

It seems that every few months software updates are coming out for phones and new features are being added all the time. This was made more apparent with the release of the Iphone and widespread knowledge of new versions of Iphone OS and its new features. Android, a similar smartphone platform also debuts new versions of its Android OS every so often, however I find it to have great discrepancies based on the actual device and the service provider. This is somewhere where I would say the Iphone beats Android devices.

See, when Apple releases a firmware update, it goes through to AT&T and then its pushed to the devices via iTunes updates. Because the Iphone is locked to AT&T, firmware updates need to only go through one round of testing with the service provider, meaning a much quicker update sent to the actual phones. Android phones on the other hand are on every service provider and come from a number of handheld manufacturers. Not only does Google have to send out its updated firmware to the handheld manufacturers, but it also needs to get approved by the service providers as well. Usually it isn't that big of a deal, since many of the higher end phones receive much greater priority and therefor get updates passed quicker through testing. However, as a user of a lower-end Android phones I see that phones like the Droid Eris, the HTC Hero, and the Mytouch 3G and G1 all get overlooked when it comes to software upgrades. Android 2.0 itself was released when the Motorola Droid was released November 6th, and the Droid Eris was released the same day with Android 1.5. It took until April for 2.1 to be pushed to phones for an OTA update. The Droid itself is already on firmware 2.1, with news of 2.2 being pushed on it sometimes in the next month. Why are there so many discrepancies with Android phones, that upgrades need to be sent directly to the Service provider for approval and editing before it allows for them to be transferred to the phones? This nonsense makes Android weaker to the Iphone in my opinion.

The flexibility to choose a phone on any service provider is great, but the options of firmware and software updates makes Android lacking in the performance market. I believe that if Google wants to topple Apple's grip over the smartphone market something needs to be done to ensure that all of their current handhelds have the same software version.

Droid Eris Leaked Root

While root for the Droid Eris had already been out for quite some time, Leaked Eris users who flashed the leaked 2.1 firmwares were...for better terms....left out. Leaked users were unable to gain root access to their phones due to changes in the radio, which prohibited them from downgrading or even upgrading to official firmware. However, a method for rooting the leaked firmwares of the Droid Eris was unleashed. With this it would seem that users who had leaked could gain root access and so therefor "flash their brains out". Everything seemed fine and dandy at first, but after reading the instruction the difficulty level for root rose tremendously. Only if you've already had extensive knowledge with these devices could you understand what it was that you needed to do to gain root. For many user (including myself) it seemed like the only thing to do was to upgrade to an Incredible.

However, on July 13th Leaked users received a blessing. User wag3slav3 from the xda-developers forums was able to write scripts that enabled novice android users to root their leaked phones. You don't know how happy that made me. Using his fool-proof guide (many edits later) I was finally able to root my Leaked Droid Eris. What did I do immediately following? I flashed KaosFroyo v21 to my phone. And I have to say, I can't believe it took me this long to get this type of access to my phone. And i'm happy that I finally got it. I jumped up and down like a little boy in a candy store. Note it was 2 AM when I finally rooted so my family members were in shock to wake up and hear me galavanting in joy. I've had almost a whole day with KaosFroyo and I just updated to v22, after a few more days I will start posting reviews for roms that are released at xda-developers. Hoping to make the main emphasis and focus of this blog based on Android.

The afformentioned link to the forum post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=724741