Android Phone Tips And Tutorial

Google dropped a bombshell in January when it announced it would considering closing its China search site and leaving the mainland market because of censorship issues and recent cyber-attacks. The first apparent casualty of the decision: China Unicom.

A week after Google's declaration that it would no longer censor search results on its Google.cn site – with the full understanding that it could be forced to close down and exit China as a result - China Unicom indefinitely delayed the launch of its first .Android powered handsets, which were due to be released on the mainland January 20. Unicom initially said it was delaying the launch of two Android-enabled devices from vendors Motorola and Samsung because of Google's possible exit from the mainland. In later reports, however, Unicom attributed the postponementto debugging problems.

The two W-CDMA smart phones - Samsung's GT-Í6500U and Motorola's XT70I - use Unicom's customized Android-enabled OS called Uphone, using Unicom's own OS, UniPlus. The Samsung smart phone incorporates Android 1.5, while the Motorola device will adopt Android 2.0.Unicom is also plarming to launch its own application store, UniStore, for the Uphone platform.

Google confirmed the Android handset postponement in a press statement. The search giant did not explain the reasons for the delay, but a Google executive is quoted as saying it would be "irresponsible" to launch the smart phones in China as planned, since it was unclear "how things are going to turn out'" in the coming weeks.

Google was considerably clearer on its reasons for ending web filtering in China. Chief legal officer David Drummond said the company had recently sustained attacks aimed "primarily" at accessing the Gmail addresses of China human rights activists as well as stealing Google's intellectual property. In an investigation it had found that the accounts of dozens of human rights advocates in Europe, China and the US had been "routinely accessed by third parties."

Drummond said that Google.cn was launched in four years in the belief that the benefits of wider access to information "outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results." However, the company had made clear that it could carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on its services. "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered - combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web - have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility' of our business operations in China.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."

What all this means for Android's prospects in China is unclear –not least since China Mobile's OPhone OS tor its TD-SCDMA-based 3G service is also a customized Android OS.

However, the row hasn't stopped Motorola from unveiling a new app store for China that allows users to download apps to Android phones. The new storefront, SHOP4APPS, "will be available on new Motorola smart phones in China starting in time for ([Chinese New Year," Motorola said in a statement.

Perhaps tellingly. Motorola also announced a new feature on its Android handsets for China that enables users to customize Android devices by selecting their own search provider, including China's No.l search engine Baidu – marking the first time ever that Motorola has also opened up its search engine choice to consumers.

"Users will be able to select their search experience from a number of providers including Baidu and others, with whom Motorola has signed strategic agreements," said the vendor.

Meanwhile, as we went to press, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said at a news briefing that Chinese mobile companies need not worry about their Android plans being affected by Google's censorship restrictions dispute - so long as Android apps don't violate the same restrictions.

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