Android versions on different moblies

Here is an initial overview of Android based mobile phones and which version of Android they are running (shipped, official update, community update)

Mobile phone	Android shipped	official update	community update	Comments
Android Dev Phone 1 / HTC Dream / T-Mobile G1	1.0, 1.1	1.1, 1.5, 1.6	2.2.1, 2.3.7	Update HBoot to 1.3.0033d and Radio to 2.22.28.25 for more available RAM
HTC Desire	2.1	2.2, 2.3.3	2.3.7, 4.1.2, 4.2.2	Use A2SD for more app-storage
HTC Hero / T-Mobile G2	1.5	2.1	2.3.7
HTC Magic	1.5, 1.6	2.2.3	2.2.1, 2.3.7	Update HBoot to 1.3.0033d and Radio to 2.22.28.25
LG GW620	1.5	1.6, 2.2.1	2.2.1, 2.3.7, 2.3.7	...
Motorola Milestone	2.0	2.1	2.3.4	...
Samsung Galaxy Spica I5700	1.5, 2.1	2.1	2.3.4	...

A more complete list of Android devices you can find on Wikipedia.

Install the latest and greatest on your HTC Hero

Before we start do a backup of your data! Better be save than sorry!

To update the GSM version of the HTC Hero (also known as T-Mobile G2) you first have to get the following:

1) flashrec - flashes the recovery partition to Android devices (works with Android 1.5, sources and development here), newest version by the time of writing: flashrec-1.1.3-20091107-2.apk
2) RA-hero Recovery ROM - important for nandroid backup, wipe and flash, actual version: RA-Hero-v1.6.2
3) New Radio-Firmware - for a better connection - newest version: 63.18.55.06OU_6.35.15.01
4) A custom ROM - like VillainROM, SenseHero (development here) or MoDaCoROM - there are more out there! ;)

Now we are copying this files to the root of the SD-Card on your HTC Hero. With a Filemanager capable of running .apk's (for example Linda File Manager) we install flashrec from our SD-Card. After that we run flashrec, make the recovery and then insert /sd-card/recovery-RA-hero-v1.6.2.img - now press the button below.

Turn of the mobile. When you restart the mobile first hold the Home-Button (and turn on the phone) and keep Home pressed until you are on the Recovery Screen. Here you should first make a nandroid backup, then flash the Radio. After that reboot it and start Android - see, if everything is still working ;)

When you restart into the recovery mode you should now make a wipe (also from dalvik cache) - this will delete all your personal data (except from SD-Card). Now flash the Custom ROM of your choice and reboot. This may take a while, so be patient! Now enjoy your new firmware! :)

open-gpstracker - Free GPS Tracker for Android

If you are searching for an Open Source GPS Tracker for your Android mobile you will find open-gpstracker very useful! It is licensed under GPL v3.

With this Android application you are able to collect the GPS data from your phone and export it to the gpx format - I started using it to track my sport activities.

The homepage is on a google code project page - unfortunately the last version (0.9.13) for Android 1.5 was published 2010-02-21. So it is the last version usable for mobiles like my HTC Hero (if there will be no Android 2.1 release from HTC). Also the application is not available on the google market searching with Android 1.5.

The newest version by the time of writing is 0.9.15. So for integrating twitter into this application the developer Rene de Groot started to twitter.

HTC Hero adb access under Ubuntu 9.10 amd64

When i connected my HTC Hero (formerly T-Mobile G2) with my Ubuntu 9.10 64bit to get shell access to it i had the following problem:

$ ./adb shell
error: insufficient permissions for device

$ ./adb devices
?????? no permissions

So i found a solution here: http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/device.html
First you should generate a new udev rule:

sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
---
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
---

Now you have to change the rights:

sudo chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules

Also you have to reload the udev rules:

sudo service udev reload

Now if you reconnect your HTC Hero you will have access with adb from the Android SDK Tools!