Mobile Phone News

Want Android 2.1 on your Hero? Of course you do — but don’t look for it from HTC… at least, not yet. It should be available eventually — and in the meantime, you’re obviously welcome to do some digging for a cooked ROM from the good people at xda-developers — but for at this time, High Tech Computer is kicking out another Cupcake-based firmware for Hero users on Orange in the UK. Don’t expect anything groundbreaking in this place, but CoolSmartPhone reports that there’s at least a new People widget with a 3 x 3 grid, which sounds particularly handy for anyone with nine or fewer friends. If you want it, it’s a quick download away — not as cool as an OTA, of course, but still better than accidentally submerging your phone in boiling water.

The Touch HD doesn’t benefit from the HD2’s mighty 1GHz Snapdragon, so you might think that emulating Android 2.0 on top of Windows Mobile on HTC’s last-gen superphone would end in tears — but surprisingly, it seems to hang tolerably well. xda-developers has a project coming along to run Android on the handset through a layer called Haret, meaning you can kind of have your cake and eat it too — if you consider Windows Mobile a cake, that is — by switching back and forth between the two environments at your leisure, and by all accounts, Android seems to be just a couple notches slower and more stuttery than your average MSM7200 device. it seems like you still need a cold boot to get between the two platforms, but it’s better than flashing your ROM every time, right? Follow the break for video of Haret in action.

Upgrading a Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard device to 6.5 is like putting a fresh coat of paint on your rusted-out ‘78 Duster, but in the scheme of things, a 6.5 upgrade is still far, far better than a punch in the face. On that note, we’re excited to hear that an official update is in the works for Verizon’s Ozone from HTC, the CDMA remix of the Snap that launched with 6.1 mere months before 6.5 became widely available. Actually, it’s more than “in the works” — it’s available right this very second, just not through any official channels. As usual, it’s xda-developers coming through with a copy of the update, so apply it at your own risk; in reality, 6.5 brings very little to the table for Standard handsets, so you shouldn’t feel too bad if you wuss out and wait for Verizon to give you the blessed version. Just don’t be surprised if you end up waiting half a year for it.

Official WinMo 6.5 upgrade for HTC Ozone leaked originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 31 Dec 2009 22:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.