Posts Tagged HTC Dream
Arabic on Android – Take 2
Posted by saif in Uncategorized on 31/12/2009
I see that a lot of the visitors to my blog are interested in Arabic on Android and most of them go to my previous post entitled, rightfully, Arabic on Android.
So to follow-up I’ve been doing some search. I found a mod (KB7SQIs Magic Mod w/arabic v2.7.2) that is based on Sapphire HTC Arabic Etisalat 2.56.494.7. I’ve installed it on my G1 and happy to report that the Arabic support is pretty good, even though it is based on Android 1.5. Arabic text on the browser is displayed properly and is displayed well everywhere else. I’ve attached some photos of the mod in action.
If you want to learn more about this mod and all of the other available mods, go to AndroidSPIN and look under AndroidSPIN DB directly under the big Android.
Upcoming Android Phones I Like
Posted by saif in Uncategorized on 01/11/2009
This is a short post.
I am looking for an upgrade for my T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream) phone. I like it but like any 1st generation models they have their drawbacks. I haven’t found a phone with an actual physical keyboard. I also want to keep the G1 as a testing phone, you know try the stuff I cannot do with a phone I actually use to receive calls on.
Previously I’ve talked about the HTC Hero, which seems like a very nice phone but without a physical keyboard, and I have read about it being a bit underpowered. Now, however, there are two amazingly good-looking phones that I can’t wait to check out. First Sony Ericsson Xperia X3 Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. It has a big screen (800 x 400 pixels), 8 mp camera, and a rumoured 1 Ghz processor. The release date is rumoured to be Nov 3rd.
Another impressive Android phone that was making headlines lately is the Verizon Droid, made by Motorla. This phone has some impressive specs, including a big screen (854 x 480 pixels), 5 mp camera, and a physical keyboard. What makes this phone ‘extra’ amazing is that the phone is just a hair thicker than the iPhone 3GS with the physical keyboard. It also includes the new Android 2.0 OS with a turn-by-turn Google maps/navigation. It is around $599 and $199 with a two year contract (in the US). The ‘rest-of-the-world’ release of the Droid is called the Motorola Milestone and will set you back around $700.
Any other Android phones you think are worth mentioning here?
Arabic on Android
Posted by saif in Uncategorized on 15/07/2009
A thing that bothers me with the T-Mobile’s G1, aka HTC Dream, is the lack of Arabic support. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem considering the fact that I’ve been using Arabic for a very long time on computers with several different Linux distributions. Furthermore, rumors came out that the Android OS update 1.5 (Cupcake) will have built-in support for Arabic including localization. This, unfortunately, did not happen. However, this is Android after all, and as is the tradition with Linux, “if it is not available, build it. If you can’t build it, wait for someone else to and use that.. ” or so it goes.
There is a good effort regarding getting Arabic to work Android. This is not completely easy though. First, you should have your phone rooted (another link to get root). Afterwards, you need to install fonts that allow you to see Arabic, this was harder before, but thanks to Aman Alshurafa, you are able to install the fonts using the regular “copy to your memory card, rename to update.zip, restart phone holding down home+power, press ALT-s to install update.zip”. This does not really give you total Arabic support but it is a step forward. I should mention that Ahmed Essam was the first to write the Arabic reshaper class, and Amr Gawish updated it and wrote the first Arabic SMS reader.
After this start, many other Arabic programs started to show up on Android. Abdullah Bahitham made Arabic soft keyboard for Android 1.5 (Cupcake). He also made an Arabic Notepad. There are several other programs that you could find in the Android market.
Thank you everyone for the effort you put in so that the rest of us can actually use Android and enjoy it.
NOTE: There is a related post called Arabic on Android – Take 2 that is relevant.