Database Users

Android 2.1?

Check it out:
http://androidandme.com/2009/11/news/android-2-1-spotted-in-the-wild/

I'm in class, web filters are blocking me from seeing this. I'll check it out when I get home.

I love how google are constantly updating, it wasn't long since we got 1.6 and now 2.0 is on the horizon with 2.1 looking pretty soonish.

its good to know that theres always some sort of progress going on at google,for example google navigation, didnt expect that.

You realize that they are only using the USER AGENT to come up with that... don't you? In other words, anybody who feels like it could hit up their server with a custom user agent (trivial -- check out the firefox plugin "User Agent Switcher").

I can't wait for 2.5

2.2 Froyo to the EVO in July

Today at the Google IO keynote, Google announced the new features that Android 2.2 code named "Froyo" will introduce. Android 2.2 will be available via update for the super popular HTC EVO 4G phone this July.
One of the many improvements that Android 2.2 will bring is better performance when running applications. They have made improvements to how applications are compiled that allows apps to run more efficiently, which ultimately allows the applications to run faster and smoother than ever before. Android's web browser Chrome, has also been improved with a 2-3x javascript performance boost using the V8 engine which allows web apps to load a lot faster with Android 2.2. During the live demonstration using Sun's standard Spider javascript test, Chrome on Android 2.2 out performed the same phone running Android 2.1 and even outperformed the Apple iPad running Safari!
Google also announced that Android 2.2 will improve the Chrome browser by adding better HTML 5 support which will allow the browser to utilize features of the phone that were never possible in previous Android OS versions. These new features include the ability for the browser to utilize the phone's accelerometer in web based apps such as Google Maps to change the viewing angle instead of having to use on-screen controls. They also demonstrated how HTML 5 will allow you to use the phone's camera in web-based apps such as Google Buzz to take a picture and share it right from your web-browser! To top it off, Android 2.2 will be the first mobile operating system that will have native flash support. With Android 2.2, the Chrome web browser will have full Adobe Flash Player 10.1 support to allow you to view flash-based websites, play flash games, and more! This is something that not even the iPhone is capable of doing!
While many smartphones already support push notifications to receive email, instant messages, and other notifications instantly. Google is taking this idea to a whole new level with their Cloud to Device messaging API. This new feature allows users to send commands to their Android device to launch applications, perform tasks, and much more. For example, if a user is viewing Google Maps on his desktop computer, with one-click in his desktop browser, the phone will automatically launch Google Maps and open up to the same location that was being viewed on the desktop browser. This is going to be really useful for users who need to quickly switch from their desktop/laptop environment to their phone in a moments notice!
One of the most exciting features for our readers is that Android 2.2 will add a feature that turns your Android device into a portable hotspot. This feature will create a WiFi network that provides internet connectivity for up to 8 WiFi-capable devices using the 3G or 4G mobile networks. While Google didn't say if this will require an additional monthly fee for a tethering plan, we suspect that this feature will require the tethering plan on your phone which is usually an additional $30/month.
While Google said that there are over 20 new enterprise features, they only mentioned that in Android 2.2 there would be Microsoft Exchange support, including auto-discovery, integration with global address book, forced security policies, remote wiping of the device, the ability to easily move application data from one phone to a new Android device, and many more enterprise friendly features that would be announced in the near future.
If you are currently an Android user, you know how great Google's voice search is for searching the web using your own voice. While their voice search feature is already very good, they demonstrated that voice recognition has improved since Android 2.1 as well as a new feature that uses Google Voice called "intentions". "Intentions" is designed to work like a personal assistant, if you say "Call Fifth Floor Restaurant" it will search for the restaurant based on your GPS location, find the phone number for this restaurant, and automatically place the call for you. In Android 2.2 Google Voice also will have a voice translation feature that will translate and speak almost anything you say into another language. This is going to be a must have feature for anyone who travels frequently!
There are also going to be several updates the the Android Market Place including:
Automatic Updates - The ability to have all of your applications automatically update when new versions are available, instead of having to choose to manually update each application.
Google's Auto-Fill Search - Uses Google's Auto-fill search to guess at what you are trying to search for as you begin to type in your search keywords, just as you see on Google's web search.
Search within application data - Now allows you to search within application data such as financial documents, office documents, spreadsheets etc, so that you can find your personal information more quickly and efficiently!
Install/Move Apps to SD Card - With Android 2.2 you can move large applications to the SD card to free up internal memory, and you can even configure Android 2.2 to automatically install large apps to the SD card when internal memory is low.
Desktop Android Marketplace - You will now be able to access the Android marketplace via your desktop on your web-browser. From the desktop version of the marketplace you can view your Android devices, which apps you already have installed, and purchase applications. If you have an Android 2.2 device, when you purchase apps from your desktop, they will be automatically pushed & downloaded to your Android 2.2 device via 3G/4G connectivity without having to tether via USB to sync the application to your phone!
Google also announced a new feature to Android 2.2 that will allow users to access and stream their entire music library from their desktop computer or media center device to their Android device via WiFi, 3G, or 4G! Google has partnered with Sprint & HTC to provide the new HTC EVO 4G to all the developers who attended the Google IO conference. Google said the HTC EVO 4G will provide consumers with the best Android experience possible with it's 4.3in screen, 8mp camera, HDMI output, and most of all the first phone to use 4G technology to provide speeds up to 10mbit/sec!

July? Really? Do you have any other outside sources to confirm that? If so, that kicks some major ass.

http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/05/20/htc-desire-incredible-android-2-2-froyo/
Thanks notown775!

Wicked!....if its true!

I doubt it will be in july, froyo may one out publicly and be pushed to the N1 in july but not to the evo, because of sense UI.

I would agree with July as some have mentioned that it might be released wth Froyo 2.2 on June 4th. Since that timeline is very near a July push is more than welcomed news. It's kind of like having a 1.5Ghz processor now instead of 1.00Ghz I think the improvement is going to be spectacular.
There will so many many new phones out and I will be broke by the end of the year
Too bad they were not all GSM based phones so I could just swap out my SIM card and have just one phone number or use the google voice and call it a day

Ummmm, "second half of the year" can be July, or it can be December. It doesn't mention anywhere that it's going to be July.
Judging by past HTC updates, I highly doubt it will be in July. And if HTC does get it, you can be sure Verizon/Sprint etc will be taking it before it goes OTA and disabling the built-in tether, delaying it even longer.

.....yeah its official, July 4th @ 7:05am it will be in my hands :-D
Sent from my soon to be replaced HTC Hero using Tapatalk

they keep mentioning the EVO 4g, so i wouldnt put it past them to have it ready by july.

that sounds to good to be true and too soon for the supersonic.where are you guys getting all the infos from anyway?

2.2 should run fantastic on the Evo hardware. Doubt the update will be allowed OTA on Sprint as soon as it's available from Google, if history is any teacher.
Hopefully WP7 takes a lesson from both Android and iPhone: regular OS updates that enhance functionality on a MOBILE platform.
Either way, whenever the update gets pushed down, it will be a good thing.

Well i doubt we will get the update in july, but engadget said HTC released a statement saying most 2010 phones will get the update. So n1, Desire, Incredible, and the Evo. Most phones by htc in 2010 have ran sense UI so i dont think that will be as big a problem now to get the update, not as much as Sprint pushing it to the Evo will be with the built in teether. engadget.com/2010/05/21/htc-most-phones-launched-in-2010-will-get-android-2-2/

I think the EVO will get priority from HTC since it is essentially their "flagship" device.

We can always hope.
Let's say there's a two or three month delay between Evo release and 2.2 availability - will 2.2 break ROM's created since the 6/4 release? Or any other apps?
That's what stinks.

Technically it should be pretty soon.
I believe the reason it took so long for the Hero to get 2.1 is because it was coming from 1.5 or 1.6 (I don't remember). Since HTC already has 2.1 running with Sense, upgrading to 2.2 with Sense shouldn't be all that difficult considering the bulk of changes are under the hood and have no changes made to the UI itself.

I wonder...what makes Android upgrades more difficult: changes in UI, or under the hood? Any developers out there that can chime in on this?
I think the major problem here is the carrier. I'm sure OS upgrades have to pass some internal control on the carrier, which explains why Nexus One users get updates immediately.

Nexus One got it so quickly due to the fact it didn't have sense UI. Like a computer getting upgraded windows or MAC or Linux, its easy to upgrade the OS but when you have UI its more difficult to keep everything working properly. And it would be a stupid move for HTC to not have this ready for Tue EVO 4g a few weeks, NO days after its released on the N1 !

khov07 said:
I wonder...what makes Android upgrades more difficult: changes in UI, or under the hood? Any developers out there that can chime in on this?
I think the major problem here is the carrier. I'm sure OS upgrades have to pass some internal control on the carrier, which explains why Nexus One users get updates immediately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe the UI is the biggest problem. Look at CLIQ or Hero or xperia's phone. Also coming from 1.5 Sense to 2.1 Sense is probably a lot more work coming from 2.1 Sense to 2.2 Sense.
HTC offers the updates on their site I believe, not sure if it has anything to do with the carrier.

This one might, as 2.2 enables tethering and hot-spot capabilities. I'm sure carriers will have something to say about that - they have so far.

2.2 isn't as huge an upgrade from 2.1 as it was from 1.5 to 2.1. 2.2 Should be out a lot quicker, as i doubt sense will have to be updated that much

HTTP POST Capture

I was wondering whether there is such software for the android that can capture http posts before sending. i.e. like the firefox addons you can get and apps like http analyzer?
This would be really useful for testing purposes.
Cheers.
Gazos

You can try some general traffic capture tools (Like tcpdump or airodump-ng). If You have rooted phone, check out Shark for Root (tcpdump on phone).

Thanks for the update but I guess what I want is real time captures (and manipulation) like its possible in Firefox using only the phone.
I currently use tcpdump to capture data but want to edit the data before its sent out.

You can try to find/write small proxy server application and run it on phone, so you will be in control.

ex87 said:
You can try to find/write small proxy server application and run it on phone, so you will be in control.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Or you could run paros (http://sourceforge.net/projects/paros/files/) on a machine on your network and get the android browser to use it as the proxy (which looks like a bit of a task in it's self.)

The only viable way I can think of to do this (given Android's insane lack of proxy support) is to hack a custom firmware for a Linksys WRT54g so it basically routes everything to a transparent proxy (Fiddler2, Webscarab, Paros, Burp, etc) running on a PC. Something like this:
Android =[wi-fi]=> WRT54g -[ethernet]-> PC with proxy -> internet router
It might even be possible to achieve this without hacking the WRT54g.
The only problem you might still have (not sure) is Android's handling of invalid SSL certs since the proxy would basically be doing a man in the middle attack, and the app running on the Android phone would see an invalid SSL cert.
Be warned that trying this with a Windows host PC is almost guaranteed to fail unless it's Pro/Ultimate, and in any case this is going to involve some seriously hardcore manual routing config that goes beyond anything Windows' config screens were really intended to set up.
You can try to find/write small proxy server application and run it on phone, so you will be in control.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm pretty sure I saw this discussed on the android.security list, and the consensus was that the current API doesn't give any way to do this transparently, and it's questionable whether you could even implement something like WebScarab natively on Android using the NDK. I believe the general consensus was that if you want to host something like WebScarab on Android, it's going to take a custom kernel to pull it off, and some solution that lets you offload the actual proxying to a regular PC would be infinitely easier to pull off, and less cumbersome to use for actual security testing (it's enough of a pain trying to use Fiddler2 or Webscarab with a 1280x1024 display, let alone 854x480... not to mention trying to cut and paste examples into Word Documents for vulnerability assessment reports (shudder)).

^^^ OMG. I just installed AOSP ("Buufed") for the CDMA Hero, and it actually HAS the ability to set proxy for WiFi. I haven't tried it yet, and I'm not sure whether it's purely an "AOSP" feature or something I've just overlooked up to now that was in DamageControl, but it looks like at least *some* Android builds DO have it now

Desktop browsing instead of android mobile

Tired of the about:debug hopefully a fix is coming soon....
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

TheWh0leTruth said:
Tired of the about:debug hopefully a fix is coming soon....
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I understand its up to the developers of websites to differentiate between "Android" which is tablets, and "Android Mobile" which is phones.

Dolphin is the bees knees on my xoom I love the side to side features... all ready uninstalled the stock browser
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

martonikaj said:
From what I understand its up to the developers of websites to differentiate between "Android" which is tablets, and "Android Mobile" which is phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are correct, but isn't that a little ridiculous? I mean the other browsers deliver us a desktop experience with no problem. I guess I understand the desire for the browser to be recognized as Android-specific, but relying on websites to change their code ultimately results in a less-than-ideal experience for the user. I don't know what a website's motivation would be to change their code. From their standpoint, I think it would seem like we are expecting them to make changes so that our substandard app will work. The websites will probably catch up, but meanwhile, shouldn't the stock browser be able to bring us as satisfying an experience as a third party app does?

nbowes said:
The websites will probably catch up, but meanwhile, shouldn't the stock browser be able to bring us as satisfying an experience as a third party app does?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The websites would never catch up if that was the case. Right now the best way to deal with it is write to page owner that have this problem and complain.

Why not just change the user agent? Am I missing something?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Magnesus said:
The websites would never catch up if that was the case. Right now the best way to deal with it is write to page owner that have this problem and complain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You make a very good point here. And I guess the sites in question are actually the better sites that redirect a user to alternative content (low-res video or non-Flash pages) based on the browser's signature. Since they already consider that, they may be more likely to respond to user requests and feedback and change their code. Our browser type should begin to show up in their web traffic reports, too. But I think it'll be a slow-going change because in the whole lineup of browsers, we're a minority. Personally, I'll be more apt to open Dolphin to view a page that isn't displaying in desktop mode, long before I would hunt down a webmaster email address and send a note. I'm not even sure exactly what to ask for in the note. If anybody would care to provide a post with some proper terminology, that might help the cause.
ChongoDroid said:
Why not just change the user agent? Am I missing something?
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As I understand it, we can select "desktop" as our user agent, but that identifies our browser as "android" which a lot of sites interpret as "android mobile" and redirect us to mobile content anyway. I have also read where some folks can't get the setting to stick through a reboot.

nbowes said:
You make a very good point here. And I guess the sites in question are actually the better sites that redirect a user to alternative content (low-res video or non-Flash pages) based on the browser's signature. Since they already consider that, they may be more likely to respond to user requests and feedback and change their code. Our browser type should begin to show up in their web traffic reports, too. But I think it'll be a slow-going change because in the whole lineup of browsers, we're a minority. Personally, I'll be more apt to open Dolphin to view a page that isn't displaying in desktop mode, long before I would hunt down a webmaster email address and send a note. I'm not even sure exactly what to ask for in the note. If anybody would care to provide a post with some proper terminology, that might help the cause.
As I understand it, we can select "desktop" as our user agent, but that identifies our browser as "android" which a lot of sites interpret as "android mobile" and redirect us to mobile content anyway. I have also read where some folks can't get the setting to stick through a reboot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Desktop is not android. Android is android just like iPhone emulates an iPhone... about:debug or dolphin browser? Cmon
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

ChongoDroid said:
Desktop is not android. Android is android just like iPhone emulates an iPhone... about:debug or dolphin browser? Cmon
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I select "desktop" in the stock browser, it gives me a very different experience than when I select it in another browser, such as Dolphin. I am under the impression that selecting "android" would tell a website that I am on an android phone, and it would render the mobile version of the site. I don't want that, so I selected "desktop" but still often get directed to mobile versions of sites. I thought I read that the reason for this is that selecting "desktop" identifies the browser as "android"...as opposed to "android mobile." I guess sites aren't coded to recognize "android" as being different than "android mobile" and render the mobile version.
The suggestion has been to notify site owners of the problem and ask them to update their code. I think to do that effectively, I need to fully understand the issue, and I'm sorry but your reply didn't help me with that.

Android user agent is for tablets. Desktop is for desktop. Not many sites are setup to render pages for a tablet that's why you get the mobile version when set to android.
Sent from my Xoom using XDA App

But...I'm getting mobile versions when I'm set to desktop.
Thank you for your replies. I think Chongo has made a pretty solid case for the Dolphin browser.

Dolphin is one of the best alternative.
I am using the Dolphin Mini on my Nexus S just because of this user-agent issue, plus tabbed browsing, quick bookmarks, etc.
It is not as fast as the stock one, but the speed is still fast enough to enjoy the experience.
I read that Dolphin is still not good enough on Honeycomb. They have updated it, but still choppy.
We can hope that the developers are hard work to bring it up to speed with Honeycomb, better stability, faster with hardware acceleration. Certainly, this will be realized quickly as I read Google developer posted detailed information about hardware acceleration on Honeycomb:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/android-30-hardware-acceleration.html
nbowes said:
But...I'm getting mobile versions when I'm set to desktop.
Thank you for your replies. I think Chongo has made a pretty solid case for the Dolphin browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Btw, anyone can really catch the stock browser user agent string?
I am interested to know "exactly", the exact string text, what is the user agent string of the stock browser, default setting and when set to desktop via about:debug.
And also from the Dolphin set to "desktop".
Thanks if you can do this for us.

nbowes said:
But...I'm getting mobile versions when I'm set to desktop.
Thank you for your replies. I think Chongo has made a pretty solid case for the Dolphin browser.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to type ' about:debug' every time you reboot and in some cases after clearing your browsing history or after the browser stops. In other words, 'about:debug' does not stick. But your settings are remembered, so you won't have to keep changing your user agent, you'll just need to keep typing 'about:debug' in your address bar. The easier way to tell if you're still in debug mode is by clicking the menu icon and seeing if you have expanded options or not.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

gogol said:
Btw, anyone can really catch the stock browser user agent string?
I am interested to know "exactly", the exact string text, what is the user agent string of the stock browser, default setting and when set to desktop via about:debug.
And also from the Dolphin set to "desktop".
Thanks if you can do this for us.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://my-addr.com/ua
For me, Safari is listed when in both desktop and android mode. When in android mode, platform shows as unknown.
With Dolphin in desktop mode, the agent is Chrome and the platform is Win7.

I don't have Xoom, so I cannot test that
But, I tested using my Nexus S, and here is the result:
Dolphin in Android mode:
Browser name: Default Browser
Platform: unknown
Operating System: Linux, Smart Move!!!
User Agent: Safari
Dolphin in desktop mode:
Browser branch name: Safari 3.1
Browser name: Safari
Browser version: 3.1
Platform: MacOSX
Operating System: Mac OS X
User Agent: Safari
Stock browser in Android (default) mode:
Browser name: Default Browser
Platform: unknown
Operating System: Linux, Smart Move!!!
User Agent: Safari
Stock browser in desktop mode:
Browser branch name: Safari 5.0
Browser name: Safari
Browser version: 5.0
Platform: MacOSX
Operating System: Mac OS X
User Agent: Safari
They are all using "Safari", no word "Android" mentioned.
nbowes said:
http://my-addr.com/ua
For me, Safari is listed when in both desktop and android mode. When in android mode, platform shows as unknown.
With Dolphin in desktop mode, the agent is Chrome and the platform is Win7.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

One good thing about being automatically sent to the mobile version of a site?
Gizmodo.com
The mobile site is vanilla and plain but DAMN it's better to look at than that new mess of a website they've put up the last couple of months.
/rant

I think the issue here is why can't the Stock browser settings stick when you change the user agent. Dolphin seems to work perfectly fine after rebooting or after a browser crash. If the Stock browser did the same thing, after changing it to desktop, I don't think anyone would have an issue.

FYI Google addressed why this happens in their Android Blog:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/12/android-browser-user-agent-issues.html
Basically, the browser reports itself as Android, but not Android Mobile (as someone else suggested).
Websites currently sense if you are using Android and assume its a phone (because it always used to be), but now they should key of the word "Mobile" instead.
This does have drawbacks, but from an engineering perspective, it is the "correct" way to do it. Hacking the user agent is bad practice - its important for web admins to know if a lot of tablets are accessing their website, for example, so they can make sure the site works well for them. If Google set it to spoof a windows desktop, web admins would never know how many tablets were being used, and may be serving their users with a less than optimal page for tablets without realizing it.
So it will take some time for web admins to fix their sites, but unfortunately, this is the right way to do it. It would be great though if the about:debug settings were sticky. It might be bad practice for Google to design the tablet to spoof the user agent, but its fine if an individual user decides to.
-Taylor

It seems like the best option is to complain to webmasters who do not allow the option of leaving mobile mode on their sites.
If the option to view either mobile or full site is given then there is no need to spoof the user agent and the device would be properly tracked by whatever software the host is using. We need to complain more to the web admins if we will ever see the compatability that the ipad users currently have when browsing the web. At the same time the web admins need to know that enough of our devices are out there before they will see a need to create an alternative browsing experience. This is why I am against changing the user agent.
Edit: Perhaps Google had the same thought in mind and this is the reason the user agent setting does not hold after a reboot.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA Premium App

[Q] Samsung Focus routing apps through apn proxy?

I was wondering as was stated in the thread title, is it possible for me to route not only browser data, but data from apps through a specific proxy port? lets say port 80?

Great question, our company also uses Corporate APN's with a proxy, I've only managed to get my SEX10i to work with the following kernel:
2.6.29 FXP
Baseband 2.1.71
MIUI 1.12.16 OODIE |pRiMe|
with ProxyDroid...
From the limited knowledge there is a global proxy that you can route all apps through with this kernel/Rom...
However I don't see that in ICS so I'm back to square 1 with my SGS3 - I'm considering on looking into ProxyDroid's codebase to perhaps try hack out some sort of routing mechanism...