Honestly, ever since I saw Sprint on the Open Handset Alliance announced by Google, I had a feeling that they’d be the first with an Android powered handset. Sprint and T-mobile were the first 2 carriers I saw on the Alliance, and of the two, I figured Sprint has the best track record of getting new HTC phones first.

I’m glad T-Mobile got the G1 first, because in all honesty T-Mobile could use some limelight lately. But imagine the irony when I stumbled upon the following information, courtesy of Reuters:

Apparently, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse doesn’t think Android in its current form is ”good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”

Really? I mean, come on, you’re kidding, right?
Sprint is too good for Android?!

Look at the devices Sprint HAS put their name on… the Sprint Mogul had a bluetooth bug and advertised features that weren’t available at launch (EVDO Rev A and GPS), yet released it as is. The Moto Q is generally considered the buggiest smartphone released by a major carrier, yet Sprint had no problem putting their name on that… but Android, who early adopters are absolutely loving so far, is too good for you?

Boggles the mind. Anyone else think there’s more to this?

HTC is known for making the world’s most popular Windows Mobile handsets. While their handset designs are often well thought out, practical and efficient, they are hardly ever accused of being hip and stylish.

The European HTC Touch Diamond is trying to break that mold by giving it a minimalist sleek glossy front, and oddly angled back with jutting out triangles (that’s supposed to remind you of diamonds, I think).

Here in the states, however, they decided to keep with a more traditional (normal?) looking back for the CDMA version. But, to try and keep things stylish, Sprint is releasing it with a Burgundy/Red color.

Normally HTC picks colors from grey to black for their housings, so this could be an interesting new trend to market towards “fashion” phones. Palm and Blackberry have been releasing various color options for years, so its only common sense that HTC start doing this as well.
I suppose its only a matter of time before Apple offers colors other than Black or White for its iPhone cases.

Read More.

Everyone is psyched up about Android, but Google is still sitting on their new OS for the next few months.

Its no secret that HTC is behind some of the first handsets to run Android, so that got people thinking- will Android be available on current HTC handsets when it is released?
And if not, how hard would it be to port over, assuming HTC uses similar architecture in their manufacturing?

Well the phone hax0rs extraordinare over at XDA-Developers and PPC Geeks didn’t want to wait to find out. Apparently they have been working on ways to port leaked versions of the OS and all its open source linux-based goodness over to current HTC devices!
Now, its not a full port, and still relies on the Windows Mobile OS underneath for device drivers and what not, however after loading itself into RAM, the Android OS takes over the GUI and presents the user with an early look of things to come.

The problem with this, however, is that you need enough RAM after Windows Mobile boots to load the Android OS into and run. On the new devices with 128+mb of RAM, (such as the HTC Tilt, Vogue, and Diamond) there is plenty of memory to go around, however on many current devices including the Sprint Mogul (Titan), the 64Mb limit is far too tight.
People have managed to get it to boot, but portions of the OS, such as data connections, didn’t work.

That is, until now.

PPCGeeks forum member “l33tlinuxh4×0r” with the help of “dzo” have managed to get it to boot and be functional despite the limited 64mb of RAM.

“Android boots, The touch screen works. You can make phone calls. You can browse the internet.

This will NOT mess up your phone. It runs from ram and there are no permanent changes.”

(Copied from original thread here)

The needed files and instructions to make this work can be found here.

Its still not perfect- apparently not all the hardware buttons work, but this is very exciting for current HTC users who are interested in Android.