Google on the Go : Using an Android-Powered Mobile Phone

The first EASY guide to Google phones for consumers, not experts!  A complete real-world guide for users of the T-Mobile G1 and any other Google Android phone.  Everything consumers need to know about Android calling features, contacts, calendars, photography, media, Web access, email, and troubleshooting.  Friendly, casual, practical, and easy to understand.  First to market - months before any other Google Phone guide for consumers. Google on the Go is the perfect hands-on guide to any Google Android smartphone - both the hot new T-Mobile G1 and all the competitive Google Android phones that will soon follow it. Written for typical consumers -- not hackers or programmers -- this casual, friendly book shows exactly how to use each of the Google Phone's most important and powerful features. The authors begin with a tour of the Google Android phone, showing how to use each of its essential calling and voicemail features. Next, they turn to Google Android's built-in applications, showing how to work with contacts; use the local calendar to coordinate your activities with others; take pictures; use your phone as a personal media player; and more. Google on the Go includes easy-to-understand coverage of Google Android's essential Internet features, from web browsing and Gmail email to the Google Application Suite. Users will even learn how to add additional programs to their phones. The book concludes with a full chapter of easy, plain-English troubleshooting steps for non-technical users, as well as a brief introduction to advanced topics such as customization.

John Eddy is a long-time gadget hobbyist who has spent most of his career helping everyday people use technology, in roles ranging from product support to moderation of online forums. Patricia DiGiacomo Eddy is an accomplished technology author and mobile phone geek whose books include Special Edition Using Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, The Absolute Beginner's Guide to OneNote, and Access 2003: VBA Programmer's Reference.

Introduction Introduction Who Is This Book For?I'd love to say that this book is for you, no matter who you are. But no one book could cover the wide range of cell phone users when it comes to discussing a new system.So, how do you know if this book is for you?Maybe all you've ever used a standard mobile phone for is making phone calls. Maybe you occasionally send a text message or use your cell phone camera to share pictures with friends. Maybe you'd like to jump ahead to the latest phone software, but you feel a little nervous about that.If that sounds like you, I'm writing for you.However, if you're constantly buying new technologies and skipping the user's manual, preferring to play with what you've purchased and figure it out for yourself, you can still use this book as a handy quick reference to a feature that you forgot how to configure.If you're already planning what software you can write for Android, this probably isn't the right book. We give you pointers to some resources to help you write software, but this topic is not discussed in depth. What Is the Open Handset Alliance?The Open Handset Alliance (OHA) is a group of companies that looked at the current generation of mobile phones and decided that only by coming together could they best drive innovation and give customers a better experience when it comes to their mobile phones.These companies range from hardware manufacturers such as HTC, LG Electronics, Motorola, and Samsung, to mobile operators such as T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel, to software companies such as Google and eBay. What Is Android?Mobile phones, like your computer, have an operating system. It can be something simple, with few to no graphics and no color, that just allows you to make phone calls. Or it could be extremely powerful, letting you do almost everything you can do with your desktop computer.Android is an operating system for your mobile phone and definitely falls into the second category. Not only does Android offer you a powerful Internet experience, but tools are also provided via the Internet to let people write their own applications for the phone.In addition to Internet connectivity and programmability, Android has been released under the Apache v2 open-source license. What Does Open Source Mean?Open source has a number of different definitions, and admittedly, this particular section could sound a little techy. So let's try a basic explanation:Open source means that the words behind the software are available for anyone to read and improve.If you want to understand more, keep reading. Otherwise, skip to the next section.Software, such as Windows and Halo, is written with simple words. Those words are run through something called a compiler that takes those words that you and I can read (to varying degrees of understanding) and makes them something that computers can read and use.What this means all depends on what license is used. Just as a driver's license lets you drive, and a hunting license lets you hunt, different open-source licenses let people do different things. Some require you to take changes you might make to the software and share them by putting the changes back into the software that other people will download.