Nexus One

It had to happen sooner or later: Someone’s gone and smashed their Nexus One screen

Crave UK are reporting a case of ‘broken screen’ on their brand new Nexus One. They’ve been trying to convince HTC’s support department that all this happened whilst quietly charging the phone on a desk, but HTC were not surprisingly a bit skeptical.

Putting a phone in a tight pair of jeans and sitting down would usually cause this kind of damage - HTC

HTC decided in the end to go ahead and issue a free handset, not without a little persuasion from Crave I imagine. Crave have written about the experience on their site and offer some advice to others who find themselves in the ‘same situation’.

If you’ve got the same problem, our top tip is to think hard about how it got broken — within the bounds of truthiness, of course. HTC support says it will ask you whether you’ve carried the phone in a pocket or kept it out of its case.

‘Think hard about how it got broken’. Nicely worded guys. I’m still trying to get the picture of how it actually got broken out of my mind.

It’s time to come clean. Who is Nexus One News anyway?

Since starting the Nexus One news feed back on 13th December 2009 I’ve been fairly quiet about exactly who’s behind the site, publishing all my posts via the fairly anonymous whythemobile. Google’s legal department have recently been in touch asking that I more clearly state that the news is not from an official source:

Whilst our client is encouraged by the fascination surrounding the launch of its Nexus One, including your own interest in its products, our client is nevertheless concerned that the presentation of the Website will give Internet users the erroneous impression that the Website is an official Google marketing website for the device, or is a marketing website licensed or authorised by our client…

Although I thought it seemed fairly obvious that this was an unofficial news source I also thought it wasn’t a bad idea to let people know who’s behind the site. So for the record - I’m not in any way representative of or affiliated with Google and publish all the content on this site completely independently.

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Five Short Links: 4th March 2010

• Google is with Nexus One handsets. - Developers of Android Market applications with 3.5 stars or higher and at least 5000 downloads get a free handset from Google.

• Google launches for Android.

• An Android Success Story - An Independent Developer making $13 000 a month with an Android Market Application. Good to hear that it’s possible to make decent money on the Android platform.

• Spare now available direct from Google.

• Adobe demos Flash 10.1 for Android on the Nexus One.

Apple yesterday issued a statement announcing a lawsuit against Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC for iPhone patent infringements. HTC was the first company to produce phones which ran the Android operating system and recently partnered with Google to produce the Nexus One.

This is a fairly unprecedented move by Apple and to our knowledge the first time that they have initiated a direct lawsuit against a major competitor. Although Apple have chosen to serve HTC it would seem that it is Google’s Android operating system that is the real target here.

Nexus One to launch in the UK in April with Vodafone

is reporting an exclusive on a launch date for the Nexus One in the UK. Google’s flagship handset will launch with Vodafone in April says the paper, quoting sources close to both companies. Vodafone had been keen to launch in March apparently but are saying that April is now looking more realistic.

No word on data plans although they’re likely to be very similar to current iPhone tariffs. And the handset will of course continue be sold exclusively through Google’s online phone store.

Nexus One: CDMA version approved by the FCC for Verizon and Sprint

We’ve known for a while that a CDMA compatible version of the Nexus One would be available in the Spring, and it looks like this very same handset, bearing the model number PB99300, has just been approved by the FCC. Now that it has cleared regulator approval it will be heading to the Verizon network, as announced by Google at the Nexus One launch, and to also Sprint according to a recent report. We still don’t have an official launch date but progress through the FCC indicates that things are still on target for a launch this Spring.

Adding this to what we know from another recent FCC filing it seems that there are so far three Nexus One variants:

• PB99100 - The handset which premiered on 5th January, currently the only model available to buy from Google’s phone store.

• PB99110 - Recently spotted passing though the FCC. Adds support for WCDMA bands II and V meaning that it will work with AT&T’s 3G Network in the US.

• PB99300 - The CDMA version of the phone which has just received FCC approval. Available in Spring 2010.

It’s possible that the PB99110 could be replacement for the current Nexus One, rather than addition to the range, as it has all the same capabilities but also supports AT&T 3G (plus other networks who use the WCDMA II and V bands).

This would things fairly simple for Nexus One customers who would have the choice of buying either the ‘300 Verizon/Sprint CDMA version or the ‘110, which is likely to work on all other major networks across the world.

A couple of days after we Google has officially announced the new Android application on their mobile blog. Showcased on the Nexus One the software will also be available for other devices running Android 2.1 or later versions.

As we hinted at last month, we knew Nexus One was going to be a great platform to showcase the rich (and technically demanding!) features of Google Earth. With a 1GHz processor, advanced 3D graphics, and Android 2.1, Nexus One packs a lot of performance in a thin package. Ever since we got our hands on one, we have been putting it through its paces, drawing complex scenes of 3D imagery, terrain, roads, and other layers, and Nexus One never misses a beat. Now that we have put the final touches on the app, we are happy to announce that the latest member of our family is ready for the world — Google Earth for Android. This is our fastest mobile version of Google Earth yet, with a smooth framerate and a beautiful 800 x 480 screen.

Full announcement on Google’s .

Flash is dead. Long live Flash!

Ok, we admit that we might be going a little over the top with the number of Flash running on the Nexus One articles that we’ve been posting lately and we’d like to preface this post with the reassurance that this isn’t going to turn into a Flash fan site. But whatever you think of Flash it is kind of a revelation to see it running like this on a mobile device.

Interesting to note in this clip is how quickly the battery level indicator drops during the course of the demo. Apple have so far blocked the use of Flash on their mobile devices due to concerns over performance and if this demo is anything to go by it looks like this could be well founded. That said this is of course an early version of Flash for Android which hasn’t been hardware accelerated.

With the debate over the part that Flash will play in the future of internet video still ongoing we’d also recommend an article by Jason Garrett-Glaser who provides some fairly insightful comment on the state of various multimedia technologies:

…now it becomes clear why Flash is so disliked. It’s nowhere near the most insecure of popular browser plugins; Java has had far more vulnerabilities according to Secunia. It’s certainly not the least reliable, nor is it completely proprietary; as previously mentioned, the spec is public. Yet because of the above three mistakes, Adobe has made enemies of developers worldwide.

It’s interesting that Flash is coming to Android at the same time as many developers are searching for a better way of delivering multi-media content to the internet. It’s clear that users appreciate being able to run Flash as for the time being at least the experience of browsing the internet is not complete without it. But we’re coming to a crossroads. Apple have it seems already decided that the time has come to distance themselves from the technology, but with Flash still being so ubiquitous it’s a bold move. Flash may not be ideal but isn’t going away any time soon. And with Flash coming to Android later this year the choice will be put into the hands of consumers, who will be able to decide whether or not they want a Flash enabled mobile internet experience.

How To: Install the HTC Sense Interface on a Nexus One

HTC recently launched their new Desire handset, which turns out to be almost identical to the Nexus One in terms of hardware features. Software-wise it differs from the Nexus One in that it runs HTC’s Sense interface which the company have put a lot of work into, in an effort to create a defining HTC user experience for their phones.

The Sense interface may not be to everyone’s taste, but thanks to Android being what it is Nexus One users can now try Sense out for themselves. Paul over at has released an alfa version of the HTC Desire ROM which also includes Flash 10.1 for Android as well as lots of HTC Sense widgets.

Here’s Sense running on a Nexus One. There’s a few bugs as expected from an alfa release so you wouldn’t want to use this as your main ROM, but you may want to give Sense a try to see what it’s like. If you’ve followed our guide to rooting your phone then you can simply install as follows:

• Download the latest and copy it to over to the SD card on the phone.
• Boot your phone into fastboot mode (power on whilst pressing the trackball)
• select BOOTLOADER –> RECOVERY. You will be rebooted into custom RA recovery mode and allow you to do a Nandroid backup via Backup/Restore.
• Once backed-up perform a factory wipe and then select ‘Flash zip from sdcard’ to flash your Nexus One with the latest alpha version of HTC Desire ROM.
• Reboot and enjoy.

How to: Rooting your Nexus One - a definitive guide to what’s involved

So what is rooting anyway? Rooting means gaining access to your phone as the root user. Just like on Linux or Unix the root user is the superuser, or administrator on Windows and has unrestricted access to the system files to install new software etc. Logging in as root is not in itself dangerous, but often comes with the ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ warning because the root user has  permission to overwrite and delete system files.

Why should I care? Rooting a phone allows you to install modified versions of Android which can have new features and software configurations not available in the official branch. You might for example want to install Flash on the Nexus One before it becomes available via an official update, or enable full memory usage to speed up performance. With root user access you have full control over all your system files just as you would on a desktop computer. With root access, custom ROMs (read-only system software packages) can be flashed (witten via USB) onto your phone, meaning that you can run modified versions of Android.

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