Through-out the month of January 2011, Runkeeper are giving away the Pro version of their mobile client (Android and iPhone iOS) for nothing, a saving of $9.99 for each version.

I’ve been using the free version of Runkeeper on my Nexus One for the past 9 months and have been very impressed with the service in comparision to some of the other training trackers on the Market and the Polar based gear that i’ve uses for years before now.  The things that have impressed me the most have been the social networking side of the website, the general look and feel of both the mobile apps/website and the ongoing enhancement of the size; like the recent addition of heartrate monitoring.

Downloading the pro verison now whilst it is free give you access to additional features like:

• Manual activity posts (something that used to only be done via the website) for those times on the gym machines
• Audiable coaching / pace information as you are training
• Custom playlists whilst you exercise

Depending on how far you want to take the usage, Runkeeper also has a yearly ($19.99 USD) subscription service for their Elite functions that provides a greater level of statistical data about your fitness activities and helps to generate taylored training progams to help achieve that next milestone or race event.  Something that I really like the sound of but have yet to try is Runkeeper Live, which allows you to stream live information to their website for people to follow your progress, real-time.
Download your copy from iTunes or the Market now, whilst it’s FREE!

UPDATE 1/Feb/2011: RunKeeper have seen a massive increase in the number of people registering to use their application since it was made free for the month of January.  Despite being listed as one of Apple’s top grossing apps for 2010, the team as decided that from what they have learnt and their future plans, they will continue to provide the Pro version of the RunKeeper mobile app for free.

It was a few days ago now but I finally gave up waiting for Google to send me the update for my Nexus One that was running build number ERE27 of the Eclair 2.1 version of Android and took the plunge with a file from the Internet that would manually get me updated to the Froyo version of Android 2.2.

Lets start by saying that the upgrade was so easy, that everyone should jump on this if they have not yet had the update delivered over the air.  One point that I have not seen reported anywhere is that this update does NOT wipe your devices current data.  I spent an hour or so backing up all of my personal / application information only to find after the update that it was already still there !!

For the update from ERE27 to FRF85B I downloaded the file from:
http://android.clients.google.com/packages/passion/signed-passion-ota-42745.dc39ca1f.zip
and followed the these instructions to get it installed:

Since then, the morning after actually, Google released a security patch update to get everyone onto FRF91.  I woke a few hours after doing to upgrade to find that the patch was ready and waiting for me on the phone.  Hopefully, this will put me in a good place in the update line for the future Gingerbread release.

I have to say that the speed increase for the Internet is just fantastic, no longer do I wait for pages to render.  As soon as the information gets downloaded, it is up on the screen.  The other major point for me was around the WiFi Tethering.  I finally got around to testing the iPad’s Internet access by tethering it with the Nexus One.  I could tell you all about it but instead, here are the results in a pictorial form!

That’ll do nicely thank-you!  No longer will I be caught short in motorway service stations.

It looks like the day has final come.  Reports are surfacing amongst other less important news today (iPhone 4 release day) that owners of the Nexus One are being prompted to say that there is a system update available for them to download.  Froyo (Android 2.2) is being released to the general public!

At the moment it looks like the Over-the-Air (OTA) update is only for Nexus One phones running either build number FRF50 or FRF72, with them each ending up on FRF83 one the latest update has been installed.  I’m still on build number ERE27 and have yet to see the update (even after forcing my phone to check the update servers.

Lets hope that by the close of this week, Google have opened up the release gates to all build versions to share in the Froyo goodness.  I can’t wait to be able to tether my iPad (32Gb WiFi model) to the Nexus One when I am out and about).

When it comes time to update, you should get the icon on your notification bar and see the following message in the notification window.

If you want to force your phone to check for the update, there seem to be 3 ways to do this:

If you want to try option 3, you should load the phone dialler keypad and type *#*#2432546#*#* that’ll make the phone go off and automatically check for updates for the operating system and the Android Market apps that you have already installed.  When the check has completed, you will get a notification alert entitled checkin results with the message of success.

I’ve not tried it myself but you can apparently upgrade from build FRF50 to FRF83 manually through the file on Google’s Android Client code site.  It has been stressed that you MUST be on FRF50 for this to work, so don’t even bother trying if you have any other build number shown on your phone’s about screen.

Source: Android and Me

It’s been a little over 4 weeks since Google I/O where we officially heard about Froyo (Android 2.2) coming to the world.  Since then, press provided phones have had some sort of an update and there has been a ‘fake’ release on the Google Code website (that was quickly pulled down).  However we have yet to get an actual date from Google on when the OTA update will be sent to the masses (seems to be the norm for any Android updates).

News out this morning however would make you think there is a real chance of seeing the update notice on the Nexus One soon.  Korean carrier KT will be launching the Nexus One to customer from next Monday, 21st June.  Nothing ground breaking there but the real exciting bit is that the 4000 handsets KT has to provide this month will all come with Froyo installed!

As long as this is not another testing phase for Froyo, you would have to think that we must be REALLY close to a general release date now.

So here we are. It has been a while since I published an entry on the infamous HTC hero update but last week (4th June) brought some REAL positive news to GSM based Hero owners! HTC released the Eclair (Android 2.1) update in Taiwan. So there goes another rumour, Scandinavia is not the first region to get the new OS release.

So let the race begin, can HTC get the Eclair update out to the world before Google gets the Froyo (Android 2.2) update out to Nexus One owners, making the Hero update obsolete before it is even installed?

One of the good things that should come out of this whole saga is a better understanding that Google and the manufactures of hardware for the Android platform need to start creating a proper release schedule for updates rather than leaving it for speculation.

I missed this over the weekend but it would appear that a small number of devices are starting to see the Froyo (Android 2.2) OTA update appear.  According to the Engadget article, it would look like Google are pushing the update out to the devices they have on record as being released to the press.  You would have to think that pressing the button that starts a global rollout of software much be a little daunting no matter how well the deployment testing has gone.  So as the press folk would have been given the phone for nothing, it seems only fair that they form the next batch of guinea pigs and risk getting a bricked device before the rest of us.

As you would expect, it looks like the actual file that gets pushed out Over-The-Air is out to download, and there are manual install instructions available also.

I’ve spent some time this morning reading through the user comments on a number of forums and I think that for the moment, I will hold off the installation.  Whilst I do have a Nexus One with the ERE27 Build Number there seems to be too many rumblings of it not working on anything other than T-Mobile handsets and the manual installation not having all the features what were announced at the Google I/O Conference last week.

I am really eager to try the Portable WiFi Hotspot (tethering) for mobile data access via the Apple iPad and to confirm that having an unlocked phone on the Vodafone UK GSM network means that they will not be able to restrict my usage.

For the sake of a couple weeks, I am going to fold off the manual install and wait for the OTA option to come out.  In some ways I am hoping that this will be factory reset required update so that I can take the plunge at the same time to migrate my Google Mail account over to GMail.

UPDATE 24/May/2010 @ 14:47 BST: looks like my review of the other blog comments could have been correct, Phandroid just posted an entry to say that, “Froyo May Have Been Launched Prematurely“. If you do go ahead an apply the ‘in-the-wild’ update, don’t be suprised if you get some qwerks!

Froyo May Have Been Launched Prematurely

I recently had a chance to get my hand on an imported iPad, and with the delay in Apple’s launch to the rest of the world and the 15% hike that had been applied to the UK retail prices, I could not turn down a USA import!

One thing that really got me thinking however was, “do I get the 3G, or the WiFi only model?”.  While I don’t (didn’t) see myself really using the device away from WiFi capable areas, would it be sensible to cover the base and get the 3G model just because???

Well I thought of my wallet and went with the WiFi only model, thinking that I could always root my Google Android based Nexus One to enable tethering.  Thus being able to use the data contract that I already have in place in the event that I don’t have WiFi access.

This need recently became all to very apparent when visiting another of our company office that does not have a public broadband access and on a trip to the Peak District.  The only access that I could find was through BT’s Openzone network.  While this would have worked great, I have a pet hate about paying for such access.  Having a mobile phone that could act as a portable hotspot or MiFi type device would be the holy grail.

Recent rumors have hinted towards the Froyo (Android 2.2) release enabling the tethering feature as a default option rather than needing to root your Eclair, (2.1) phone.  Google confirmed this today at the their IO 2010 event!

While I still do not know when I will see Froyo actually on my Nexus One (I’ve not heard of any public release dates yet), it now means that I have the perfect setup for what I want to do.  After all if I am going to be sat in a coffee shop with my iPad, I am going to have the phone in my pocket!

Now I just have to hope that the mobile operators do not find a way to track down and block iPad traffic connected via tethering!  Anyway, the way I see it, I pay for data access on my mobile phone contract, so as long as I stay within the FUP (Fair Usage Policy), what have the likes of Vodafone got to complain about!

Google officially announced Android 2.2, aka Froyo to the world at the Google IO 2010 conference today.

It doesn’t look like Google have tried to make massive interface changes in this release, it looks more around increasing productivity and making things a little easier to do.  I guess the biggest change that has been talk about (or rumored) up to now, is the addition of the full Adobe Flash 10.1 client with Froyo.  The demo of this at #IO2010 and on Engadget’s website looks to be very promising in terms of making Flash content perform at a reasonable rate.

Overall Google focus on 4 main areas in this release

I’ve yet to see any dates of when Froyo will be out for the general public to get their hands on but I will be watching the news (and my Nexus One’s screen) very closely!

In the mean time, there is the Android Developers YouTube clip.

Good news for all those HTC Hero owners that have stuck with the phone this year as HTC fail to meet just about every deadline they have announced for the Android Eclair update to this device; Sprint have released the 2.1 Android update to their CMDA version of the phone today.

While this doesn’t help the European GSM based devices, it does at least mean that talk of the Hero running some sort of an Eclair software release must be true and it can only be a matter of time before the rest of Hero owners get the update too.

From reading the Sprint info release, it looks like the update formats the platform again; just like the update in Sept 2009 did.  So expect to be backing upyour data folks!  If you really want to keep all your SMS’ then I can really recommend WaveSecure.  I installed it when they were running the free trail to Android owners and it worked perfectly when I migrated to the Nexus One.