Famous for breathing new life into obsolete devices, those mad scientists over at xda-developers.com and ppcgeeks.com have overcome a major hurdle in bringing the Android operating system one step closer to working properly on the HTC Rhodium (commonly known as the Touch Pro 2)… SOUND.
Porting Android to older Windows Mobile devices isn’t anything new… Fans of the original HTC Vogue (Touch) have been running fully functional Android ports for quite some time now, often flashing it to local memory and obliterating Windows Mobile completely from their devices.
Other popular HTC devices such as the HD2 (HTC Leo) and the Touch Pro (HTC Raphael) have had similar ports released relatively quickly, however something about the sound hardware in the Rhodium/Touch Pro 2 made it completely unresponsive to normal system commands that have worked for every other device so far.

Critics of the project called it hopeless- The time required to determine and fix the sound problem could very well take longer than the expected end-of-life of the unit (Side Note: According to certain US carriers, the Touch Pro 2 has already reached its EOL). In other words, by the time they figure it out, no one will have the device anymore to care.

Thankfully that is not the case, and sound is now enabled on the latest release of XDANDROID as of this morning!

You may be wondering why anyone cares about this particular project now that there has been a flood of new Android handsets to the market.

The answer is rather simple: The Rhodium happens to be a pretty decent handset with some impressively functional hardware features, even compared to newer handsets. In fact, I’ve been hard pressed to find another handset that can rival the features available to it…
Even critics of Windows Mobile will admit that the Touch Pro 2 has a gorgeous QWERTY keyboard worthy of their envy.
The upcoming Samsung Epic 4G looks like it will come close as far as keyboard design, but even that behemoth lacks some of the functions Rhodium owners take for granted:
A tilting display, better battery life than most current smartphones, directional microphone conference call system, and certain models contain both CDMA and GSM radios, meaning you can swap carriers on a whim.

Now, I’m not saying the Rhodium is BETTER than the Samsung Epic, with its 4G radio support and AMOLED display… but I am saying that the Rhodium’s usable life is far from over, and there is plenty of reason to still be interested in this handset.

If nothing else, being able to dual-boot Windows and Android is quite an incentive to keep one of these around… However make no mistake, the Android port is still far from complete (still need to get the Bluetooth and camera working, among other things). However this time there is a definite light at the end of the tunnel, and it is only a matter of time…

File this under “Wait, what?”: HTC, makers of such awesome phones as the Incredible, Hero, HD2, and Touch Pro2, will now be paying a company that owns one OS they use, for the rights to use another OS that the first company has no claim on. This kinda seems like paying taxes in Virginia for a house in New Jersey, because both have suburbs.

Whatever legal wrangling happened behind the scenes, this likely has something to do with Apple suing HTC over patents. My not-a-lawyer guess would be that by having licensed patents from a company with prior art, HTC is building a defense against Apple’s claims. Indeed, it does seem like most of Apple’s IP infringement claims are for items that were implemented in Windows Mobile (and Palm OS, even), way before iPhone OS existed.

If it’s something along those lines, it’s a win-win for both of them. HTC gets some protection, and MS gets some money for nothing (and their checks for free). If it’s not, then I honestly got nothin’.

Yesterday Sprint announced that they too will carry the Google Nexus One. This makes it one of the few smartphones you can get on all 4 US networks with no real variation (and maybe the only one that’s not a Blackberry). There’s no announced date and price, so we’re going to have to wait and see.

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If you read any other tech blogs (which you of course don’t, you loyal things you), you’ve probably heard all about Apple’s lawsuit against HTC.
I’m not a lawyer, but just to bullet point it – Apple is saying HTC is infringing on several Of their patents. What’s so fascinating (aside from just the drama) is that the patents are not only insanely broad (as many conceptual patents can be), not only do they sometimes apply to just about any OS (phone or desktop) currently in use (and some classics as well), but a ton of the patented behaviors are things that happen on the OS level, not the hardware level.

This has led many pundits to posit that Apple is really targeting Google via HTC. Google’s already come out with a statement saying they support their partners, so they’re certainly not ignoring it. Still, I believe there’s more to it than just coming at Google sideways…

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HTC has already promised that the hot new Touch HD2, the first Windows Mobile handset to use a capacitive screen and sport a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU, will be coming to US carriers soon. Which carrier and when seems to be a carefully guarded secret, however.

Well, rumor junkies rejoice… This is all unconfirmed, however according to a post over at Brighthand, a leaked ROM has shown modules with the title TMOUS, which is traditionally short for T-Mobile USA.

They also claim that there is a rumored released around March. Let’s hope that like the Rhodium (Touch Pro 2) series, it eventually makes it onto all US carriers.

It’s interesting how married to Operating Systems people can become. My first computer was an Apple IIGS, but then we swiftly moved to Windows. I used to join in deriding Macs, then I got one. Mac OS, especially 10 and up, became my OS of choice. However, I still used Windows (and occasionally Linux) on a daily basis. I’m basically platform agnostic. A platform is a tool, and the one that works best for you is the best… for you. There is no perfect platform for everyone, for computer or phone.

I mention this because of discussions I’ve been having with some fellow techies. This week I finally broke down and bought a Pre. The reactions from my iPhone, WindowsMobile and Blackberry using friends (Sort of sad, but I don’t personally know a single Android user – no I’ve never met Justin) were almost comical in their predictability. I even got complaints about the Pre from a fellow Pre owner… because he’s really a Blackberry user. I’m not saying they’re wrong – I’m just saying the Pre is closer to my “ideal” phone than most of those other options (In fact, I recalled a doodle I drew ten years ago and it resembles the Pre to the point of scariness).

Every phone does its job in one way or another and every phone does it for someone. The cell market is really big enough for everyone. So how about we all just calm down and let people find the right solution?

So, why is the Pre my “perfect phone” (so far, anyway?)? Click the read link and find out.

[Warning – this thing is a fricking essay. I clearly have no life.]
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InsideSprintNow has leaked the Getting Started and User guides for the HTC hero (as well as an Activation Walkthrough). haven’t read it yet but, neat leak.

Tonight was a busy night.

We managed to get a hands-one with three phones we’ve been interested in, the Motorola CLIQ, the Sprint Hero, and the Palm Pixi.

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Holy cow, what a week. Every time Mordy or I sat down to write a post, something else happened. I’m going to try to condense it all into one week, going by topic. Bear with me:
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Here are some interesting things from DigitalLook, but not exactly interesting enough to be their own article (no offense to the vendors, who were all awesome)

Note that I do have photos, but I seems to be mangling the photo functions of the blog, so I will be holding off on adding them.
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