FreshPhoneNews.com

Getting your hopes up ain’t a wise thing to do when it comes to HTC Dream or Magic from Rogers Wireless. Both these gadgets won’t be receiving an official OS update past Android 1.5, according to HTC’s website (Rogers Wireless has confirmed this as well). Android 1.6 upgrades for Rogers HTC Dream or Magic haven’t been planned as it was made only for “Google”- branded devices such as the G1. It isn’t available for the above two HTC-branded handsets that run Android 1.5, being considered a stable and reliable platform delivering an outstanding user experience. Bragging about the device, calling it an open-sourced “Revolution” and then turning down the customers is just plain sad. Did we mention that rival carriers offering Google supported devices have managed to tweak it up with some software upgrades?

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Nokia has just taken S60 into the age of voice command, Voice Search to be exact. Google Voice Search will now be available to all S60 handsets, so you Symbian fans can now stop feeling left out, or hating the iPhone and BlackBerry crowd for simply ‘telling’ their handsets what to find. Add to this the fact that many S60 devices don’t have a full QWERTY keyboard, and you can see why manual input for search terms would cause you to lose your thumbs eventually. The U.S. market isn’t dominated by Symbian, but the rest of the world swears by it, meaning that Google has just struck oil with this one. The video shows how you’ll get your Symbian Google Voice Search action, enjoy.

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While we expected that Dell’s offer to make smartphones for U.S. carriers would be nicely lapped up, it turned out that no U.S. carrier was interested and China Mobile got the Dell Mini 3i. The Wall Street Journal on the other hand has come out with a news piece claiming that AT&T has put Dell to work designing an Android handset for the carrier. Specifications about the handset are not known as yet, but it’s going to have a touchscreen in place of a keypad and a tiny little camera, just like the Mini 3i. Now let’s see how soon this baby materializes.

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The Motorola Tao, codenamed Sholes (you know, the handset that has been talked about endlessly) is now back in the picture. Literally. HowardForum member wnrussel has recently posted some device-on images of the Motorola’s Android device. What do we think of the images? Awesome, cool, amazing and all other adjectives falling in this category. Very good job done Moto. Very good indeed. Verizon customers will not be disappointed. The images sadly don’t show the Tao slide open, we miss that. But the rest of the interface is … awesome. Enjoy!

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Holding your breath for the Motorola CLIQ are you? Well, you can ease up as T-Mobile has announced pre-order details and pricing for Moto’s first Android handset. Existing customers can place pre-sale orders from October 19th through November 1st. The device will debut in stores the day following the end of pre-sales, which would be November 2nd. There had been some pretty strong rumors that T-Mobile would offer the first ever Android handset for free, and as much as we love rumors (they give us reason to hope after all), sometimes they turn out to be…rumors. If you want a CLIQ, you’ll have to break you piggy bank and count out exactly $199 worth of dimes and quarters boys and girls. That’s the price of a new two-year contract and a $24.99 data plan. The CLIQ features a 5 megapixel camera and snappy UI with memory expansion support for up to 32GB. Not a bad offering.

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In a fresh bowl of baloney from Apple about its incredulous app approval policy. According to Cupertino, it hasn’t really rejected the Google Voice app, it is merely ‘reviewing’ it. Apple needs to review the app because it has a few ‘issues’ that need resolving, such as;

1. 1. “[Google Voice] appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.”
2. 2. The iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.”

Ahaan. And I’m the queen of America. On AT&T’s side there’s a simple leave-me-alone kind of stance, according to Big Blue, they had “no role in any decision by Apple to not accept the Google Voice application”. Lame.

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Sprint subscribers dying for some Android action are finally nearing victory. Rumor had it that Sprint (who by the way snubbed Google’s baby, Android, before) will bring the hot and happening new OS onboard through the HTC Hero. That’s right Hero. So what brings the Hero closer to the U.S. and Sprint? Merely approval from the FCC. The Hero is said to be bearing a full CDMA/EV-DO radio not to mention the awesome HTC Sense UI that makes Android the best to happen since electricity. So yes, Sprint subscribers are very lucky people.

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While we went through July waiting for the launch of the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and were sadly disappointed, August brought happier tidings. The Google Apps Connector for BES is officially ‘in da house’. Free to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition users, Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server allows Google Apps to integrate with BES while eliminating the need for Exchange. Highlights include;

• Messages sent to your Gmail inbox are pushed to your BlackBerry within 60 seconds.
• Emails read/deleted on your BlackBerry are marked as read/deleted in Gmail, and vice-versa.
• Emails archived/starred on your BlackBerry are archived/starred in Gmail, and vice-versa.
• BlackBerry folders are synchronized with labels in Gmail.
• You can search for contact information of coworkers from the global address list on your BlackBerry.
• Contacts in Gmail are automatically synchronized with your BlackBerry address book.
• You can view your Google Calendar schedule with the native BlackBerry application, with one-way synchronization from Google Calendar to your BlackBerry device. Two-way calendar sync with the ability to accept, decline and schedule meetings from your BlackBerry device is not available with this release but we are working on it.
• Administrators can use the management and security tools that are part of BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Okay, the no 2-way calendar sync is a major bummer, but still this is a pretty solid solution for Enterprise users. Let’s see how it fares against Microsoft’s Exchange though.

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Good news for Google Voice users with friends or family in Canada. Google has decided to spare you the hassle of paying those very cheap call rates for your calls to Canada, just like the GrandCentral days, and now you can call you best friend to discuss the latest horror flick you saw for FREE. What are we left wishing? That this could all be done from our beloved iPhone without having to jailbreak it…hear that Apple?

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Those who have tried Layar, swear by it, those who haven’t, well get with the times already. Layar works by using the camera on your Android handset to show the world to you with an extra layer of location-based content. If you’re using Google search or Yelping for a restaurant, the Layar browser will plot results in a 3D layer above the live video displayed on your screen from your camera. But the fun doesn’t stop here, Layar is actually a platform, an OS if you please. And many developers have seized the opportunity to make the OS more functional, Currently available content includes Flickr, Wikipedia, Yelp, Google local search, Qype, Britekite, Twitter and more. The augmented reality browser in now globally available on the Android OS, it even comes pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy. AND, there are talks that the makers of Layar are eyeing the iPhone 3GS with intentions of launching a browser for the iPhone by next year. In the words of Homer Simpson; Woohooooo!

Demo video

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