HTC Hero Gets 2.1 in February

I read an article at www.androidguys.com earlier and they were quoting sources that the HTC Hero in Europe will start receiving the 2.1 upgrade in the middle of February.  I am happy for them.  Now to us Sprint Hero owners, what about us?   This announcement that the Euro Hero getting the 2.1 update next month is very promising.  I read at one point last month that the Sprint Hero was getting an update to the Sprint Navigation app in the middle of February 2010.  Hmm, Europe 2.1 mid Feb, Sprint nav update mid Feb.  Are you seeing what I am?  It's not hard to form an opinion that the Sprint Hero will get the 2.1 update in February as well.

Now granted this takes that we are assuming a few things.  We have to assume that Sprint knew approximately when HTC would have Sense UI ready for 2.1 and they were able to get their developers to have the navigation app ready to put into the ROM when HTC needed it.  Obviously since HTC built the NexusOne they have had their code writing paws on 2.1 for some time now.  Now granted I could be assuming a lot, but hey, isn't it fun to try and guess what's going on?

Smartphones - Cellphones or Computers

I am getting really sick and tired of all this ROM crap in the smartphone world.  Today's smartphones are basically small computers with a phone program running on them.  Manufacturers, carriers and developers need to start treating them like a computer.

For example, you go into a store and buy a computer.  It has a designated OS on it (most likely Windows or Mac).  You can put what ever future OS on it you want as long as it meets the minimum hardware requirements for the new OS.  All of your old programs still work(for the most part) because the new OS is backwards compatible.

Now onto what to do with the smartphones.  Manufactures build a phone with a specific set of hardware.  This hardware may or may not support different OSs.  If it can support multiple OSs they will probably choose to market just one.  They send the phone to the carrier with the carriers apps preinstalled and ready for the end user.  When an upgraded OS comes out the customer will have a couple of choices to get the new OS.  1) purchase a new phone from a carrier or 2) purchase and/or download the new OS (free in terms of Android, paid for WinMo.  The carrier can keep a set of apps on their website hidden behind a customer login for the customer who has upgraded to get the carrier apps to reinstall.

Doing this will stop all of the bullshit going on right now with people waiting to get the latest releases and people hacking phones to get an OS to put on another phone.  This will free up developers to write some more kick ass apps instead of trying to hack the OS.

This will really put the carriers on equal footing in terms of hardware and really make them compete on their network.

Thank you Sprint and HTC

Good news. According to the official Sprint Twitter feed the HTC Hero will be getting Android 2.1 not 2.0.  This is awesome.  Even though the Hero started out behind with 1.5 it should be up to date when the upgrade comes out.  That is if Google isn't preparing yet another upgrade to the OS that will be out before Sprint gets around to upgrading the Hero.  I waiting very impatiently for the upgrade.  Hopefully the HTC feed is more accurate than the Sprint one.  I like early 2010 vs 1H2010.

iPhone Users Suffer From Stockholm Syndrome and Sprint Fails

There are fanboys and then there are iPhone users.  This is probably one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard of.  According to Strand Consult iPhone users suffer from Stockholm Syndrome because they constantly defend the problems with both the iPhone and AT&Ts network  (http://www.9to5mac.com).  Speaking of AT&T, their network problems just got worse.  According to reports it looks like most of San Fransisco's AT&T customers were without service today. (The fake) Steve Jobs calls (kind of) Randall Stephenson of AT&T and lets him know what he thinks of how AT&T is handling their network issues for their world ruling iPhone.  You were a little brutal there Steve, but right on point (http://www.fakesteve.net).

In somewhat better news Sprint and HTC officially announced that the Hero was getting upgraded to Android 2.0.  This kind of sucks.  First they don't agree as to when the update is coming out.  HTC says early 2010 and Sprint says roughly the first half of 2010.  Roughly to me means maybe July or August.  And the whole 2.0 thing sucks as well.  2.1 is already out on the Hero in Europe and by the time the Hero gets 2.0 here in the US 2.5 will probably be out already.

Everyone fails today.  Let's try for more tomorrow.