First we saw Sony Ericsson CTO talking about the potential of them unlocking the boot loader and a few weeks later Sony Ericsson released a site showing users how to actually unlock the phones shipped with Android.

The actual unlocking is a 14-step process which requires the Android SDK, but overall, it doesn’t look particularly difficult of complicated. It currently only works for or will work for phones from 2011, such as the Xperia arc, Xperia neo, Xperia pro and Xperia PLAY, and then only of they are unbranded.

http://unlockbootloader.sonyericsson.com/

Yester day HTC posted a message on Facebook regarding there stance on unlocking the boot loader.

“Thanks so much for providing feedback, we hear your concerns. Your satisfaction is a top priority for us and we’re working hard to ensure you have great experiences with our phones. We’re reviewing the issue and our policy around bootloaders and will provide more information soon. Thank you for your interest, support and willingness to share your feedback.”

I hope this is a first step moving in the direction where we wont see any more Touch, Sense,  UX. Where the smartphone vendors are realizing that it’s to expensive to customize the user experience for every release of Android.

I personally think this is the beginning for the Android side of the smartphone market to move to a pc based model where we will se Google driving the software development just like we do with Microsoft driving Windows or Canonical driving Ubunty and the smartphone manufacturers providing drivers for there specific devices like the HP, Lenovo and Dells of the pc market.

Personally I’m all for this model as it would provide me with faster updates to the latest version of Android and a bigger selection of hardware to choose form, right now you are stuck with the Nexus series if you like to try to keep up with what Google is doing.

This is just a few topics:

Design Asks: Which Android home screen widgets would you choose?

Design asks: If you use To Dos in Notes today, how important is it that you have a dedicated To Do…

Design asks: Are the following 5 icons understandable?

Design asks: If you use an Android tablet, what features do you use on the handheld device that you’d expect to see on the ta…

In a new research report made my Gartner they say Android will have nearly half the market share for mobile devices by 2015, they also predict that the average price of an open handset will be 300$ with out a contract.

more info here: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1622614

Links:

Nexus One

Nexus S

1. Download the update.
2. Rename the file to update.zip. Note that if you’re using Windows, just rename it to “update” (no quotes, of course) because it’s already a zipped file.
3. Copy the update.zip file onto your microSD card.
4. With your Nexus One off, hold down the trackball and press the power button.
5. You’ll be booted into a white screen with three Android robots on skateboards. Select “Bootloader.”
6. On the next screen, select “Recovery.”
7. Your phone will reboot, giving you a picture of the Android robot and an exclamation point inside a triangle.
8. Now press the power button and volume up button at the same time. It could take a couple of tries.
9. Now (using the trackball this time) choose “Apply sdcard:update.zip” and let things run their course.

IBM announced an exciting update to its full-featured, cloud-based e-mail service, LotusLive Notes® – a fully hosted service offering for BlackBerry Enterprise Server,  starting at $10 user/month. 

This new capability means that small, medium and large enterprises will no longer be required to maintain an on-premises infrastructure for serving the needs of their BlackBerry mobile device users.  Plus, as a component of the hosted BlackBerry Enterprise Server, customers selecting the MDS option now have the ability to provide their users with secure wireless connectivity to intranet-based business applications of their choosing.

As the fastest growing e-mail platform, IBM is also augmenting the optional “Traveler for LotusLive Notes” subscription with support for Android® OS.  This additional platform expansion demonstrates that IBM’s strategy to provide access to the LotusLive Notes service through mobile devices running the extremely rich and innovative Traveler application – via Apple® iPhone and iPad, Windows® Mobile, Nokia® Symbian and now Android devices – is well-positioned to address the mobile needs of virtually any customer.

Sony Ericsson NEO will have Android 2.3.x and is supposed to be a midrange Android phone.

Oracle completes is accusation of Sun Microsystem

That move set into motion a series of events that would change the Java landscape. With Java firmly in its paws, Oracle set out to “monetize” Java – to use former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s favorite term – like it had never been monetized before.

Java creator James Gosling leaves Oracle

In April, James Gosling, the father of Java, resigned from Oracle. At the time of his departure, Gosling gave no reason for his resignation, except to say: “As to why I left, it’s difficult to answer: Just about anything I could say that would be accurate and honest would do more harm than good.”

Oracle sues Google over the use of Java in Android

In August, Oracle sued Google for patent and copyright infringement over the latter’s use of Java in its open-source Android operating system. Oracle accused Google of infringing seven Java patents and other copyrights. Android includes Java applications running on a Java-based application framework, and core libraries running on Google’s Dalvik virtual machine.

JavaOne 2010 is a bust

Oracle threw its first JavaOne confab in September, at the same time that it hosted its annual Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. OpenWorld, which garners more attention and more attendees, was held in the Moscone Center, while little brother JavaOne was located in the San Francisco Hilton and a couple of surrounding hotels.

Oracle gets industry heavyweights to sign on to OpenJDK

In October, Oracle announced that IBM would collaborate with the data-base giant to enable developers to build and innovate based on existing Java investments and the OpenJDK reference implementation. The two leading Java supporting companies announced the collaboration on Oct. 11 in a news conference. Specifically, the companies will collaborate in the OpenJDK community to develop the leading open-source Java environment, Oracle and IBM officials said. The two companies will make the OpenJDK community the primary location for open-source Java SE development. The JCP (Java Community Process) will continue to be the primary standards body for Java specification work, and both companies will work to continue to enhance the JCP.

The JCP approves the roadmaps for Java 7 and Java 8

Oracle said that, with the JCP approval, the Java standard will progress through the JCP, while the open-source reference implementation will be delivered through the OpenJDK project. The plan calls for standardization of these technologies in Java SE 7 during 2011, with Java SE 8 following in 2012. Java SE 7 includes language changes for improved developer productivity, dynamically typed language support and performance improvements. Java SE 8 includes technologies in support of Java modularization and language enhancements for advanced multicore support.

Apache quits the JCP

And not only did Apache quit, but so did Tim Peierls and Doug Lea, two former individual members of the JCP – both claiming that the JCP vote was meaningless and that Oracle was going to do whatever it wanted.

Lets se what 2011 will mean for Java.