On a full page advertisement for Samsung Galaxy S in Straits Times today:

I am happy to find SG Toto as one of the app that works for the Android phone.

Great.

But wait, I don’t remember releasing the app for Android..

Ok, I once said that I don’t think much of Nexus One.. but Google is generous enough to give me one.. and since I promised, I shall switch to use Nexus One for a week (:

And ya, her name is iNexus.

It is just another Android phone.

Tomorrow, there is going to be another big phone release by HTC or Samsung or Motorola or Sony Ericsson or LG or ZTE or Acer or Lenovo or Google..

And it is going to be dubbed the iPhone killer, again.

From the view as a mobile fanboy or developer:

The more Android handsets there are, the more fragmented is the ecosystem, the better it is for iPhone.

SG 4D is an app to checking Singapore Pool’s 4D lottery results.

One year ago, SG 4D for iPhone was released. Since then, it has remained as a Top 100 app in Singapore App Store! Looks like this simple 4 digits game will always be popular among Singaporean

With Android rise in popularity, SG 4D is developed and made available for all Android-powered devices. The application can be downloaded from here or using the QR code below (with barcode scanner).

This post describes my experience in flashing a Hero ROM onto a ADP1 Google’s development phone, also known as a G1 or HTC Dream.

I. Downgrading Android to RC29

1. Format sdcard to FAT
2. Download DREAIMG-RC29
3. Unzip and copy DREAIMG.nbh to root of sdcard
4. Power off
5. Press and hold Camera + Power
6. Update as per instruction
7. Finish and reboot

Your phone is now downgraded to G1 build RC29. Wondering why we are downgrading? This is because we need to exploit a security hole that is present in RC29. In RC30+, we can no longer exploit the security hole.

II. Replacing Recovery Image

A recovery image allows us to load custom build of Android, and it is what that gives us root access to the device.

1. Download Cyanogen’s version cm-recovery-1.4.img 
2. Copy cm-recovery-1.4.img to root of sdcard
3. Reboot
4. At home screen, press enter > pause for a second > press enter > type “telnetd” (if it is doing a contact search, you are correct) > press enter.
5. Go to Market, search for “telnet” and install
6. Launch telnet and connect
7. Enter the commands:

mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system
cd /sdcard
flash_image recovery cm-recovery-1.4.img
cat cm-recovery-1.4.img > /system/recovery.img

8. Power off
9. Press and hold Home + Power
10. You should see a Cyanogen system recovery. If you encountered a problem going into the recovery mode, try downgrading to RC29 and repeat again.

In later steps, we will be frequently rebooting the phone and goes into this recovery mode.

III. Upgrading Radio Image and SPL

1. Download ota-radio-2_22_19_26I.zip and copy to root of sdcard
2. Download spl-signed.zip and copy to root of sdcard
3. Reboot to recovery mode
4. Select apply any zip and select the ota-radio-2_22_19_26I.zip
5. When completed, reboot to recovery mode
6. Select apply any zip and select the spl-signed.zip

Why are we doing this?

The radio image is the latest radio baseband version. We need the correct version to go with the correct Android build.

SPL is Second Program Loader, which is part of the device’s bootloader. It is responsible for bootstraping the device, and we are replacing it with a less restrictive one that allows us to apply flash images from any region.

IV. Partition SD Card

1. Download sdparted.txt and copy to root of sdcard
2. Reboot to recovery
3. Select console mode (Alt-x)
4. Enter the commands:

mount /sdcard
cp /sdcard/sdparted.txt /sbin/sdparted
chmod 755 /sbin/sdparted
sdparted -efs ext4 -ss 150M

5. Continue with execution of the script
6. Enter the command “reboot recovery”
7. Take out your sdcard

Your sdcard is now correctly partitioned for installing bigger sized ROMs, such as Hero. As you will not be able to boot up your phone to access the sdcard now, you would need to copy the ROMs to the sdcard via a card reader.

V. Installing Custom ROMs

The last part is pretty easy – update a desired custom ROM to the phone. The hardest in this last part would be selecting from the many available ROMs

Visit the Android ROM Build database to download your desired ROMs. For example, I wanted to try HTC Hero on my ADP1/G1/Dream, I downloaded KiNgxKxROM Sense Hybrid v2.2.

1. Copy the ROM to root of sdcard (via a cardreader)
2. Insert sdcard back to phone
3. Reboot to recovery
4. Select apply any zip and select the ROM
5. Reboot when done

That’s it

Related:

• How to root a T-Mobile G1
• Android ROMs
• AndroidSpin ROM database
• HTC dev phone 1
• xda-developers

txeet v1.0.2 has been released, just in time for Halloween! In this new version, you will find Halloween SMS templates added under Occasions & Festivals. Send your friends and family a Halloween message today!

When black cats prowl and pumpkins gleam, May luck be urs on Halloween.

I’ll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween

Download txeet

txeet is an Android application developed by one of us (-:

Two things about txeet:

1. It is a fun SMS application. No longer will you run out of miss-you, love-you or hate-you messages to send.
2. It is build with Google technologies – AppEngine for the server, and Android for the client. Nice Google combo.

Inspired Zdnet’s prediction of the smartphone market, I gazed into my own crystal ball for 5 reasons why Google Android will prevail in the coming years.

1. Android is an open source operating system that welcomes every handset manufacturer. This means there will be many manufacturers churning out Android powered handsets.
2. Android SDK is powerful, feature-rich and yet easy to use. Good SDK attracts good developers, who will develop more and better apps.
3. Android app store (Market) does not restrict the type of applications. This means happy developers, more creative apps and makes the phone more than being just a phone.
4. Android phones are highly usable usable with cool user interface, seamless Google’s integration, multitask-able, etc.. We know users love great phones.
5. Android phones will have a huge variety, ranging from very low to very high price. This means Android is made affordable for any market segment.

Gartner forecasted the market share in 2012. I have my own:

• Symbian – 32%
• Android – 22%
• iPhone – 18%
• BlackBerry – 12%
• WinMo – 6%
• Others – 10%

Symbian will still top the market share due to its hardwork done in the last decade, as we have seen it trending down in the last few years. WinMo will go down even more if it continues using the Windows mentality. Android and iPhone will be the 2 most talk about mobile OS, with RIM doing catching up. The rest, including Palm Pre, will fight for survival.

I will review my crystal gazing ability in 2 years time..

HTC Dragon on Android

Android Developer Challenge 2 (ADC) is just like American Idol, a big contest for software developers.

The first similarity is that there are big prizes to be won. A whopping total of $1,975,000 USD to be won by 30 developers!

The second similarity is the nature of the competition. Unlike other software competition, this is the first that involves voting from the public. If an application passes the first round (audition O_O), it will proceed to the second round, where any Android users with Android powered handsets would be able to download, evaluate and vote for their favorite application!

Do remember to vote for your favorite application, when it comes to Market in October! (: