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Eh? Android does support ActiveSync. It just that prior to 2.2, it didn't enforce all the corporate security policies of ActiveSync. See Feature Enhancement Request 4475 and see this article for a summary of related changes in 2.2.

2.2 seems to address most of the password/security policy issues with ActiveSync. I have 2.2 running on my Nexus One, but don't use Exchange server, so can't comment here.

For Droid owners, the update to 2.2 is supposed to come out officially this week, though I'm pretty sure there are unofficial 2.2 ROMs out there already. So basically, what you are talking about is no longer an issue, or at least not a particularly significant one.

Apple gave their employees free iPhones.

Google gave their employees Dream phones as a holiday bonus:

So according to you I suppose all these phones suck so much that they had to give them away.

Regarding the last paragraph... I think the choice is straightforward.
 
If you have a Mac, and an iTunes collection, the Apple product is probably going to suit you better.
If you are a heavy user of Google services, the Android is going to suit you better.
 
Especially if you have a need for multitasking.
 
I don't have an iTunes collection; I also use Spotify mobile and a Shoutcast client for listening to music whilst surfing, so an iPhone would be pretty useless to me. The Nexus One works great.
I just wish they would take steps to optimise the JVM already.

All phones are like that. You have to have a hacked bootloader (or have your phone "rooted") to flash custom ROMS. I believe your particular phone has been "rooted" and custom ROMS will be or already are available for it. Here is a forum where you might be able to find some info.

For people who don't get the custom desktop concept on Android, here's a sampling of people posting their desktops on Android phones.

There was a comment on one of the Android sites saying that a similar performance improvement was already in the Android tree but was too alpha-y to make it to any production builds.

Ask Google. :)
However, check this out if you can't wait...
http://androidcommunity.com/guide-to-manually-updating-the-nexus-one-20100202/

I did not do this and do not endorse it.... but I don't see why it would not work and a lot of people are reporting that it does work.

If you have an Android-based phone, Vista supports user-initiated remote crashing with a third-party tool.

Absolute nonsense.

Steve Jobs got on a stage in front of an audience of millions and could not have made it any clearer.

"And boy have we patented it!"

Oh oh look at all the "tinfoil hat" loonies who think Apple might actually sue someone. NO WAI. That's just a crazy conspiracy theory. It's not like they go on earnings calls and promise their shareholders they will sue anyone who...

Oh wait. NM!

Well, maybe we're still crazy and paranoid. Why wouldn't Apple just license one of their UI crown jewels to a competing smartphone maker? I'm sure they do that all the time.

Google and/or HTC has licensed multitouch, right?

Right?

Funny, when you google that, all you get are articles where Google team members contradict this guy.

Here. And here.

But no, this is crazy. He must still be right. The Android team was just so goddamn busy that they couldn't possibly find the time to do multitouch. I mean, sure, they ship phones with multitouch hardware. And have a kernel with a device driver that supports it. That sort of thing is happening by accident all the time.

I mean, it's practically any phone where a lone hacker can reenable multitouch in the APIs _and_ get it working with a few of the apps in a few weekends.

Google was just so busy, who had a few weekends to spare?

After all, it's not like anyone really cares about multitouch... right?

Right?

Hello? Is this thing on?

The guy's ridiculous. Why defend them? Google was chicken on this, and they caved. They didn't want a feud with Apple - that's bad for business. Google could come out of safari. Out of the iphone. Oh the humanity. Maybe it was even a smart business decision. Who knows.

Now Palm, I respect.

Yeah, they intentionally violated Apple's patent. They probably sent Steve a free Pre just to taunt him.

Oh Apple and their sacred patents. We sometimes forget that by making any smartphone at all, you intentionally violate about 4,000 Palm patents. Doh!

Apple has been down that road, with Microsoft for instance. It ends up with a lot of fat 2nd, 3rd and 4th homes occupied by the children and wives and girlfriends of patent lawyers. And Palm has much less to lose in a feud with Apple. So, cest la vie.

http://androidcommunity.com/android-apps-cost-as-much-as-iphone-apps-or-more-20090807/

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/31/top-developer-reveals-android-markets-meager-sales/

These links are just the tip of the iceberg. Google isn't hard to use. The question is, do you want to know the truth? If you do, its actually fairly trivial to piece the facts together with just about any search engine and web browser.

Beyond that, just about every lie pirates use to justify their position is easily blown out of the water with trivial research. The only valid questions which pertain to piracy, is how much is it actually inflating consumer goods and how much revenue is actually lost as a result of piracy. Just about everything else I can recall which is commonly thrown around is either a lie, a myth, or a straw man to keep you distracted from the truth.

And to be absolutely clear here, I absolutely hate DRM!!! But at least I'm pragmatic about why it exists - because pirates force it to be so. But I speak with my wallet, as you should too. If it has DRM, I generally don't buy whatever it is - and I don't steal it either.

I'm growing tired of hearing about android when they only have one phone available in the US. how about no more android news until they release a new phone. deal? ok thanks

FAIL

Android is cool, but nobody has an Android phone.

Reznor is such a tool. He needs to get off the anti-depressants, crawl out from whatever rock he resides under and visit this place called the Internet once in a while.

According to this hunk of PR, the T-Mobile G1 is ranked fifth in sales in the U.S. right now. Yes, it doesn't sell in the numbers of the (#2) iPhone or the various RIM models, but that's not bad considering the phone choices in the market. Also consider that the G1 appears to have sold itself through a lot of word-of-mouth, considering how little T-Mo has actually advertised the G1.

He also needs to learn that Android is currently being tested on a few dozen different phones from a bunch of different manufacturers, as well as on netbooks and other portable devices. The Android Market is far more open than the Apple app market. If the Android system winds up on as many devices as it's being tested or proposed for, in addition to the few million G1s sold globally already, he's going to miss out on a big market.

Frankly, I don't care. I always wondered what the big deal was about his music anyway. Especially if he needs to prop up something he recorded 15 years ago.

It's possible to charge while listening to music, you just have to buy an adapter. I bought one of these so that I could listen to music during a long road trip.

The adapter is here: http://store.androidcommunity.com/content/accessories/11-176--4401.htm

At $16 it's not too bad a price and it also can replace that annoying dongle you have to use to hook up headphones.

Some more details have emerged...

The HTC Magic is based on the Qualcomm MSM7201a chipset running at 528MHz. It has quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE and dualband HSPA/WCDMA (900/2100MHz) for up to 7.2Mbps downlink and 2Mbps uplink speeds, network depending. In addition there's WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and HTC's own ExtUSB port which incorporates both a USB 2.0 connection and an audio jack (with an included adapter to use standard 3.5mm headsets).

Other specs include GPS - which works with Android's Google Maps and Street View - and a compass, plus a trackball with an enter button. All the usual Android apps are onboard, with the Magic having 512MB ROM and 192MB RAM. The smartphone measures 113 x 55 13.65mm and weighs 118.5g.

As for availability, the Vodafone HTC Magic will initially be available in Germany, Spain and the UK, as well as non-exclusively in Italy, and with the SFR network in France. No known pricing as yet, but given the nature of the European cellphone market we won't be surprised to see it free with a new contract.

Even with the new Android touch screen keyboard, the lack of physical buttons kinda sucks, IMO. Must make the phone cheaper tho.

Since using GPS in this way can be a contentious issue, Google have given Latitude users the ability to restrict location information on a contact-by-contact basis; alternatively it will let you enter a false position manually

--AndroidCommunity

I wonder what they mean by "false position" exactly.. hmm.

Actually, it's believed that the G1 and Android actually are capable of multi-touch, and it's demonstrated in the video found here. This site raises the exact same question you did, and my uneducated guess is that this is just a development issue that will be resolved in a future Android update.

I can live without it for now. At my age, I'm lucky I can touch anything with one finger, let along two.

I'm very happy with my G1 and expect interesting things to develop for it over the next year.

Maybe it's also because instead of buying it from the store a lot of people bought it online?

In fact take a look at this, where G1's were sold out when T-Mobile let people order it online.

I ordered one from T-Mobile, and a lot of my friends have as well. Granted, we're developers, but now that my other non-developer/non-geek friends and family have seen my phone, they want to get one as well.

And honestly, I don't even know where this guy came up with the "steep learning curve" and the "basic and advanced features". People I gave the phone to play with didn't seem to have a hard time figuring out how to get around. It's not like you need to be a rocket scientist to figure stuff out. Yeah, it's geared to the developer community but that's only reflected in the openness of the OS and the SDK, and not the phone or the interface itself. It's not like you don't need to drop into the commandline to work this phone.

I also think that instead of relying on hype and drooling at the mouth fanboys, Google is just relying on people buying the phone, using it, and talking to their friends and family about it.

A few people have put together a list of all the apps observed in Market to date.

I'm sure this will flood with even more over the next week when they open the developer portal. Oh yea, and I reverse engineered the iTunes remote control protocol and released an Android client GPL'ed: http://dacp.jsharkey.org/

I just ordered mine and they charged me $299 for the phone because I am currently still in a contract. Why bother telling us about the $179 price since they push new phones on you when your contract is up in order to keep you in a contract. If only a very small percentage of your user base is not locked in a contract then its some pretty shady trickery to shove the $179 price down our throats. At least if I pay $299 don't make me still enter an additional 2 year contract. There are various places on the net reporting this, including Android's Forums.

There's also an announcement from the Android Community (and confirmed by Qualcomm) that the device will be running off of a new Linux-based and Linux-optimized Qualcomm chipset.

What I find most interesting, however, is their mention of an asymmetric dual-core processor, with one core optimized for specific phone functionality and the other designed as a general-purpose processor. If this works, it will be an interesting new trend and a big step forwards for phones, Linux, and Qualcomm, I believe. (Apparently, though, it still has a few issues... I wish luck to those design teams!)

The recent demos of the Android and the announcement of the HTC Touch Pro are really livening up the smart phone market at the moment. I just can't decide on which one to get :o

The new iphone is basically available now, where as the others aren't, which is a massive advantage, but having a nice keyboard like the Touch Pro has will make being on call a lot more pleasant! Android are yet to announce a phone though, although they have made an announcement that they will be announcing an Android phone at the end of the year...