The Download Blog

The Twitter service with the cutesy raccoon mascot is making a new home on BlackBerry and Google Android phones. The free Seesmic, like its proliferate rivals, lets you read, manage, and compose Twitter messages much more flexibly than you can do from Twitter's Web site. We crash-tested both mobile versions as soon as we heard the news.

Seesmic on Android
Seesmic 1.0 for Android is available from the Android Market app, which is located on the smartphone. It takes up just over 1MB. The interface spreads four tabs along the top in both landscape and portrait mode, one each for the timeline, replies, direct messages, and your profile. There's also a ribbon on the screen that you can tap to refresh the feed. Click to open a tweet and you can save it as a favorite, retweet, or reply as a public "@" message or as a private posting. From the menu button, you can refresh, compose, or tinker with the settings.

Although Seesmic's Android interface is much more stripped down than its desktop AIR app for Windows and Mac, the app manages to remain flexible by giving you a choice over the kinds of notifications you'd like to receive, and over the partner services you'd prefer to use to send a photo, video, or shorten a URL.

Sure, it's blurry (blaming the BlackBerry camera), but squint hard enough and you'll see that Seesmic associated a picture with my account that's not actually my face.

(Credit: Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

The biggest flaws we've noticed so far? ... Read more

Scan your Facebook news feed with the new Android app.

(Credit: Facebook)

While iPhone owners have long had a powerful Facebook app with a wide range of functionality, Google Android users have had to make do with the mobile version of the social networking site (called Facebook Lite). Not only does it offer limited features, but also it is clunky and rather difficult to navigate.

But that changed Tuesday when a new and long-awaited Facebook app hit the Android market. The free app offers many of the features that you've come to expect on the iPhone app and the full version of the site. You can scan your news feed, view your friends' walls and user information, comment on status updates, hit the "like" button, take and upload photos, add new friends and post status updates of your own. What's more, you can add a notification widget to your home screen and you even can shake to refresh your news feed.

Though we welcome the extra features, the interface and navigation appear a bit convoluted as of now. For example, it takes a lot of clicks to get to a friend's profile and list of friends. Also, you can't get Facebook chat or access to messaging for now. We assume those features will be added soon.

It's worth noting that while Facebook is listed as the developer in the Android Market, according to Facebook's official Web page for the app, it was not developed by the company. From what we hear, Google developed the app with Facebook's help.

We installed the app without incident on our T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. Check back soon for a full review.

Android Facebook app photos

Update: Article updated at 1:10pm PT with confirmation from Facebook.

Thanks to close collaborations with Apple, Microsoft, RIM (BlackBerry) engineers, and so on, Facebook-sponsored applications are available for a wide spectrum of mobile phones. An official Android app is in the works, Facebook has confirmed, with Facebook and Google working together on the software.

Some have scoffed that they'd never see the day when the two Silicon Valley titans pause the rivalry long enough to cooperate on a project. The truth is that they need each other, at least this time. Google needs to fill its Android application storefront with popular titles to stay relevant, and Facebook needs to ensure that mobile users can continue accessing core functionality from any device. It would be overstating the issue to suggest that, in one sense, they both need each other to beat each other, but in the case of this small victory, the brand win is important to both.

Facebook for Android is expected to launch with fewer features than its iPhone counterpart, TechCrunch reports. If their tip is correct, users may have to make do without the message in-box. However, Facebook for Android will center on the familiar activity feed and status updates, and is said to be powered by Facebook's Stream API.

We'll see what transpires when the application materializes, so stay tuned for an update and hands-on review in the near future. Neither Facebook nor Google would share a release date, but a Facebook representative told CNET that the app is coming "soon."

Android has the strong Fbook app from developer NextMobile Web (covered here), but with all due respect, it's akin to serving margarine instead of butter; margarine salts and fattens just fine, but we all know it's not the same thing.

Google's move to let software run natively on Android devices opens the door for a version of Firefox that can run on the operating system.

At present, Android applications are written in Java and run on Google's Dalvik Java virtual machine. Last week, though, Google announced the Android Native Development Kit version 1.0 that lets software run natively on the Linux layer below, though the company sees it as a way not to run full-fledged applications as much as to run components of ordinary Android applications.

"Android applications run in the Dalvik virtual machine. The NDK allows developers to implement parts of these applications using native-code languages such as C and C++," said Google's David Turner in a Native Developer Kit blog post.

That's enough to whet the appetite of Mozilla, the organization that oversees development of Firefox and its mobile incarnation, called Fennec though likely to sport the Firefox name when it arrives in product form.

"Developers are taking a look at the NDK to see if it provides the capabilities we need to bring Fennec to Android. If it's possible, I think our community would be interested in doing it, because Android will be appearing on more smartphones with the capabilities to provide a good browsing experience," said Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's vice president of mobile.

A year ago, Mike Schroepfer, then Mozilla's vice president of engineering before he moved to Facebook, said Mozilla wasn't focusing on Android because of the Java constraint and because Android already has a capable browser of its own.

"We've been concentrating on other platforms that don't have browser or didn't have a good one," Schroepfer said in May 2008. "I'm looking forward to (Google) opening up the entire platform. Today I can't get Firefox on Android because I don't have the API (application programming interface) support.

The browser that ships with Android is based on the open-source WebKit project. That's the same foundation for Google Chrome, Safari on Mac OS X and the iPhone, and the browser on the new Palm Pre, making it something of an incumbent power among high-end mobile phones.

It's not a simple choice to releasing software that uses the Native Development Kit. Using the higher-level Java foundation insulates programmers from worrying about what underlying hardware is in a phone or other device, but using native code means the software must be tailored for a specific processor. It also means that software won't have access to many system-level features that are part of Android.

And writing native code can help boost performance, always a problem on mobile phones with limited hardware and battery life. In a parallel situation on PCs, Google has released software called Native Client that lets browsers run software natively processors for better performance.

Mozilla is interested in a variety of sub-PC devices. "We're also very interested in Netbooks across the operating system and chip architecture spectrum," Sullivan added. "Firefox, Fennec, and other Mozilla-based browsers have been demonstrated on Netbooks running Windows CE, various Linux variants, and Moblin," a Linux-based operating system for mobile devices backed by Intel.

Firefox's core use is on personal computers, though. There, a new version is imminent.

"The Mozilla team is mobilizing to ship Firefox 3.5, and it's looking like Tuesday morning" will be the ship time, Mozilla said in a statement Friday.

However, Mozilla also has issued three candidates instead of the expected one, and in the bigger picture added many new features to 3.5 that kept its release back months compared to the earlier, smaller-scale Firefox 3.1 plan, so give the organization some wiggle room.

A native application development kit has been released for Android developers, offering a way to create certain kinds of high-performing applications for handsets running the Google platform.

Android 1.5 apps from Google I/O--photos

Android applications run through the Dalvik virtual machine, which emulates a Java virtual machine. On Thursday, the Android Native Development Kit (NDK) was released, allowing coders to create parts of their Android 1.5 applications outside Dalvik, using native-code languages such as C and C++.

This approach would not ordinarily produce a massive performance boost, but it does allow developers to reuse existing C and C++ code for Android applications.

Android engineer David Turner wrote in a blog post that the NDK, which is an adjunct to the standard Android software development kit (SDK), could be used for writing higher-performing applications, but also had its drawbacks.

"Your application will be more complicated, have reduced compatibility, have no access to framework APIs, and be harder to debug," Turner wrote. "That said, some applications that have self-contained, CPU-intensive operations that don't allocate much memory may still benefit from increased performance and the ability to reuse existing code. Some examples are signal processing, intensive physics simulations, and some kinds of data processing."

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Back at GSMA 2009, Adobe Systems announced that it would bring Flash Player 10 to a number of smartphones in 2010, and it looks like the company is making good on its promise.

In a Q2 audio press release, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen confirmed that Adobe will release a beta version of Flash Player 10 in October for a number of smartphone browsers, including Windows Mobile, Google Android, Palm WebOS, and Symbian. In addition, Narayen said ARM, Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm are currently optimizing the player for their products.

Obviously, this is great news for smartphone owners, but one platform noticeably missing from the list is the iPhone OS. This doesn't rule out Flash support on iPhones in the future, however. In the past, Adobe executives have stated that it's coming but that Apple is operating on its own schedule.

In CNET News' Marguerite Reardon's original report on Flash Player 10 in February, Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy and partner development for Adobe, said, "We would love to see it on the iPhone, too. But it's Apple's decision on when and how they support any new technology. So we will continue to work on it."

While iPhone users will have to wait (why do I imagine some people pointing at iPhone users and doing this?), as well as BlackBerry owners, others can get a sneak peek of what's to come in October in the video below, in which Adobe shows off Flash Player 10 on Google Android.

(Source: TMONews)

Version 1.5 of Google's mobile operating system is well on its way to bringing flashier features to Android phones. Some, like the virtual keyboard, are as sturdy and sensible as a bread roll, while others, like "live" dashboard folders and video recording and playback, pack in much more flavor and fat.

Until that blessed day arrives, here are nine free Android apps that take our G1 somewhere in between. You can download them all via the Market icon on your Google Android phone.

(Credit: Vimeo.com)

Moov: It calls itself a mobile interface, but in reality Moov is a launcher. From the dashboard view, slide open the keyboard and begin typing the first few letters of your MP3, application, address book contact, and so on to get a list of search suggestions popping up on a separate screen. Moov even helps you out by offering tabs that let you search your term in the publisher's other apps: Fbook, Quickpedia, Local (Yelp), and Dial Zero. I have to give Moov's developer, Next Mobile Web, a little credit--most of their apps made this top list, too. One setup note--for best results, make Moov the default search organism, or else you'll waste time choosing to search through the contact list or through Moov, and this app subsumes Android's own search.

Fusion Visual Voicemail: If you haven't yet discovered visual voice mail, don't waste another second. It's high time you scissor off the shackles of regular, "blind" voice mail. By simply forwarding your voice mail calls through PhoneFusion's service, you'll be able to see the messages stacked up in your in-box and listen to calls in any order you choose. You can play and pause the message, mark it unread, call or text the caller (extremely useful if you're in a meeting or another locale where it would be imprudent to field a call.) You can also add the contact, or even resurrect a deleted message. While PhoneFusion's visual voicemail service is free, it's likely that PhoneFusion will soon follow the lead of competitors on other platforms and offer premium services to transcribe voice messages into text, making them truly "visual."

Correction at 8:05 a.m. PDT to reflect updated information from Bsquare that says it's porting Flash technology, not Adobe's player itself, to Android, and that it's ported Flash to 100 embedded devices in general, not 100 Android devices.

(Credit: CNET)

Adobe wowed a crowd last November when it demoed a full-fledged version of Flash 10 on T-Mobile's Google Android phone, the G1. We've been waiting expectantly since then to see Flash 10 mobile materialize for Android.

On Wednesday, embedded devices company Bsquare hinted there could be some movement in that direction, though not necessarily from Adobe itself. Instead, the company will partner with "a global, tier-one carrier" to port Adobe's Flash technology to Android's operating system to the carrier's mystery device. Bsquare notes that it has already ported similar technology to roughly 100 devices. While Bsquare isn't quite ready to spill the beans on which international carrier has commissioned its services, we're speculating that it could be T-Mobile, which already won Google's contract to exclusively supply the Android G1 phone in the U.S.

In addition to keeping the carrier name in the dark, it's also unclear what the product's limitations will be, how the ported Flash technology compares to or competes with Adobe's forthcoming offering, and when the finished product will begin to benefit the fine Android owners out there.

The Android Market now offers the $200 'I Am Richer' application.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)

An application that did nothing beyond showing a person was willing to spend gobs of money for it didn't last long on Apple's App Store, but now we'll begin to see if Google lives up to its more laissez-faire approach to its rival Android Market.

Apple banned Armin Heinrich's "I Am Rich", which cost $1,000 and only showed a red ruby, from its App Store last August. Now the conceptually similar "I Am Richer" has arrived on the Android Market from Mike DG.

Perhaps owners of T-Mobile's G1 phone are more cost-conscious, or the recession has hurt the market for inane software, or Android programmers are willing to offer greater value, though, because the new application offers basically the same feature set for only $200, a fifth the price of the app Apple banned.

"Prove your wealth to others by running this app and showing them the mesmerizing glowing crystal," the software's description says.

Google has some rules for Android Market--no malware is allowed, for example--but generally has a much more liberal attitude than Apple. While each application on the App Store requires Apple's approval, Google plans to let the world at large sort out Android applications through the mechanisms such as the rating system. Good applications will eventually sift their way to the top of the heap the way good YouTube videos do, Google argues.

Update 7:06 p.m. PST: The $200 price is as much as Google permits organizations to charge, the company said. And yes, Google appears perfectly happy to let people buy the application:

"We check applications for compliance with the Market Content Policies and Terms of Service (in order to remove malware, porn, spam, or profanity)," the company said in a statement.

(Via IDG News)