Mobile Phone News

After months in public beta and over 250,000 downloads, Sunlight Labs is announcing that their free Congress app is in the Android Market. Using GPS or ZIP code, the application works like a handy, one-stop-shop with a comprehensive list of Congressional activity. Find your local representative, track their voting records, catch up on the latest bills, and much more all from your Android phone!

I have learned more in the few hours I’ve played with Congress than I would have over the course of a month.  It’s easy to see why the beta was downloaded so many times; It’s full of substance and comes with a super-easy interface.  To not download this would be tantamount to treason!  Ok, maybe not.  Still, grab it.

Here are some the features of Congress, as detailed by the developer:

• Read the latest bills and laws, and see how the votes were cast.
• Find and call your members of Congress by using your phone’s location, a zipcode, a last name, a state, or by committee.
• View your lawmakers’ latest votes, committee memberships, or a map of their district.
• Read tweets and watch videos from lawmakers’ Twitter and YouTube accounts, or follow them in the news.
• Easily share interesting bills across your social networks.
• Add favorite lawmakers or bills to your dashboard, or create shortcuts on your Android home screen.
• Coming soon: Real-time push notifications of votes, laws, and all sorts of other Congressional activities.

Read more about Congress at the Sunlight Labs page.

If you were to ask any avid user of Android what one of the glaring problems of the platform is, most likely you would hear either about fragmentation, or the fact that the app Market has some significant hurdles to overcome.  We have long talked about the fact that to attract new developers to create better and faster apps for the Android masses, Google would have to take some significant steps.  When developers call the Android environment the “Wild West” of developing, it is not a good thing.

Case in point.  This week, Zodttd, a developer who is known for developing game emulators on Apple devices released a Play Station 1 emu for Android, an exciting development for the community.  As soon as the word got out that the app was in the market, there was a flood of about 6000 people who went to purchase and download the app.  The only thing was, the Android Market would not let about 5,400 of the purchasers, this writer included, download the app at all.  The Market would let you buy the app, then it would hang up permanently on the “authorizing” purchase dialog.

When this happened, Zodttd got flooded with pleading emails from customers begging for help, some polite, a lot angry and some simply wanting their money back.  The problem for the dev was that he was in a virtual no-man’s land.  On his end, he had received no money to refund, but his customers were holding receipts in their hands.  He could not get help from Google right away, because there is no phone number to call for help.  In fact, there is no support department for this at all!  You can see the progression of the issue from start to finish through this post log at Google.

So, the perfect storm happened.  A dev who had decided to enter the arena of Android development creates a pretty nice app for the community, tries to get it sold in the Market, and gets jammed by a glitch in the system that makes it look like he has received a bunch of money, but actually hasn’t.  On top of that, he can get no immediate help to fix the problem, and is left to try to email Google as a whole rather than a support individual who could remedy the problem quickly.

Being one of the customers that was following the progress of this issue, I was dumbfounded by how long it took to get a resolution from Google, and as a result, how many sales the dev lost.  It really put on display the glaring issues the Market has.

Google should be working to make the Android development environment and sales structure something that is a joy for devs to work with, not vice versa.  Unless this happens, it is going to be a long, slow, uphill battle for the Market to gain serious steam, and to see the quality of apps that we are hoping for.  Come on Google, it is time to throw some serious work into this area.

Motorola has taken out another full page newspaper for their new Droid X handset.  Like the previous one, it’s basically one big slap in Apple’s face for their iPhone 4 issues. Read the paragraph at the bottom and see all the wonderful burn for yourself.  I like to imagine that Motorola was going to stop with the last ad but felt obligated to respond to Apple’s Droid X Death Grip video.  As Michael Corleone once said, “Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.”

At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly.  That’s why the Droid X comes with a dual antenna design.  The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket.  For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years.

It appears that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has taken to Android for his mobile needs.  After publicly dissing the iPhone 3GS with a wall posting, Mark threatened to switch to Android due to battery issues.  Looking at another recent wall posting, we can see that he allegedly installed the official Facebook for Android application, leading us to believe that he did in fact make the jump.  For all we know, however, Mark buys one of every phone with his kind of money.

It will be interesting to see if the application evolves as a result of his usage.  Don’t forget that lead Google/Android developer Erick Tseng recently bolted for Facebook which could also indicate a better, more robust app is on the way.

Image Source: Studio CPM

Wow!  This has been a long time coming for Sprint.  The nation’s third largest carrier is finally able to deliver some good news to the rest of the industry.  Somehow, we can’t help but think Android has played an integral role in the turnaround.  Focusing on customer service and offering highly competitive rate plans are nothing next to the power of the EVO 4G.  Ok, so we’re not completely serious here.  Read on to see some of Sprint’s noteworthy bullet points from the second quarter of this year (Q210).

• Delivered positive net postpaid subscriber growth on the CDMA network and for the Sprint brand; best ever year-over-year improvement in net postpaid subscriber results
• Achieved tenth consecutive quarter of improvement in Customer Care Satisfaction and First Call Resolution; recognized by American Customer Satisfaction Index as most improved company in customer satisfaction, across all industries, in the last two years
• Generated consolidated Adjusted OIBDA* of $1.5 billion in the quarter; maintained strong liquidity with a cash and cash equivalents balance of $4.3 billion after retiring all 2010 note maturities; year-to-date Free Cash Flow* of $1.2 billion

Sprint picked up a total of around 111,000 net subscribers over the quarter and posted their  best ever postpaid churn at 1.85 percent.  The company achieved its best year-over-year quarterly improvement in postpaid gross subscriber additions in more than five years.  Read the full press release by heading to Sprint’s investor site!

Android Central has been passed what is said to be the first picture of the upcoming myTouch 3G HD from T-Mobile.  Looking more than a tad legit, this is the first we’ve heard of said device.  Looking closely at the picture, we can see the Genius Button which made its debut on the myTouch 3G Slide a few months back.  Add to that an eerily similar form factor and we’re on board with this as the new, big brother in the myTouch lineup. We’d like to think that having HD in the name implies a 3.7-inch screen (or larger) with 720p video recording and/or playback.  Check out the top off the phone (image after break), near the earpiece.  Looks an awful lot like a front facing camera, no?

Here’s where things get fun.  Remember the phone that T-Mobile started teasing us with yesterday?  You know, the first HSPA+ phone from the carrier.  It was found that the source code from the mini-site had references to “Vanguard” all over it.  Today, there’s not a trace.  Instead you’ll find the term HSPA littered about.  T-Mobile probably realized the codename was pretty much out in the public and had to jump into action.  Fair enough.

We know that the phone listed on the HSPA+ site is only a render, but it does resemble the myTouch 3G HD.  So let’s assume these two are one in the same.  Where does that leave us?  Our hunch tells us that the HTC Vision/G1 Blaze is possibly the Project Emerald device slated for later in the year.

As we reported on Saturday, Android developers have been notified of an updated version of  the Android Market Developer Distribution Agreement. We based our report on a post on the Android Developers Blog that highlighted changes in a couple of sections of the agreement, and that implied carrier billing might become more widely available as a way of paying for apps. Soon after, we began hearing from developers that other sections of the agreement seem to have been changed as well. From what we can tell, several sections have changed in ways that will affect not only developers but also users.

The new agreement was provided to developers without changes highlighted, so we reached out to the folks who maintain the Android Developers Blog to try to sort out what exactly had changed. They did want to help, but weren’t up on the legal intricacies of the agreement, and passed our inquiry on to the legal and p.r. teams at Google, who, unfortunately, have not provided us with any information.

But after looking at the new agreement, we’re fairly sure that there are some other changes beyond those related to new billing methods:

• Section 3.4, Special Refund Requirements, states that no refunds will be available for apps that can be previewed before buying, such as ringtones or wallpapers, and that all other apps will be refundable for 48 hours after purchase. Several changes here. The current refund period is 24 hours, and applies to all apps. Additionally, there currently is no way to preview ringtones. This perhaps points to new functionality coming to the Market.
• Section 4.5, Non-Compete, states that apps with the primary purpose of distributing other apps outside of the Market are not allowed. This was mentioned in one of the emails we received as possibly new, but we’re not sure if it was there before or not.
• Section 4.9, Product Ratings, discusses not only ratings of individual apps but also scores for developers that “will be determined at Google’s sole discretion,” using not only user ratings but also uninstall rates and refund rates. Again, we’re not sure this section changed, but ratings for developers are certainly not a feature of the current Market.
• Section 13, Indemnification, is the section discussed on the Android Developers Blog. “Authorized carriers” are now an indemnified carrier. Together with the post’s mention that the Android team is working on “new payment options,” we believe this means that carrier billing for apps, currently limited to T-Mobile U.S. customers, will be rolled out more widely.

The changes to refund policies, along with the implication that users will be able to preview ringtones, seem to be the biggest news here. Some that contacted us worried that a longer refund period would facilitate more piracy, but hopefully Google’s new licensing system for apps will help lay those concerns to rest.