Funk Babblings

So the first Google Phone is finally available, a year after Google revealed their phone plans. The phone is called the G1. This is the first wide-availability phone with open-source firmware, Google's long-awaited Android platform. And unlike the iPhone's closed development environment, Android can be customized by any developer. (Both Free and non-Free Apps can be downloaded from the official "Android Market", or from a number of third-party sites.)

I've been waiting for this for a while, especially since my ancient phone has been on its last legs for at least as long as the Google phone has been anticipated.

There's only one major problem: It's only available from T-Mobile. ( Read more... )

Update: Here's an interesting 5-minute video demonstrating Android on the G1 and comparing it with the iPhone.

This week we gained possession of a pair of 8GB iPod Touches, through a surprisingly generous rebate program.

The iPod Touch is unlike any previous iPods, but is very similar to the iPhone. It's basically an iPhone without the phone, camera, or bluetooth. That doesn't sound like it leaves much, but what it leaves is high-resolution video iPod functionality, plus wi-fi networking, built on top of a miniature Mac OS X complete with web browser, email client, and other programs.

Apple's firmware doesn't allow adding apps that aren't already there, other than using web apps designed for the iPhone/iTouch platform. (A new firmware version coming soon will open this up a bit, but not by much.) However, people have figured out ways of fixing ("jailbreaking") the firmware to allow installing third-party apps, and there's even a de-facto standard packaging/installing system to make it easy to get and install programs.

( A Linux guy gets started with iPod Touch )

( Jailbreak for the good stuff )

( Some added applications )

( Music! )

( Video )

So yeah, quite the fun toy here.....