It’s just that the tide of Android devices is going to be primarily composed of “free with contract” uglies, not the kind of cool phones that compete with the iPhone. (Which is not to downplay cool Android phones, which I suspect will get more competitive, not less.)

There’s plenty of prior evidence that design can come late to a company and still succeed, of course; there’s less evidence that design can come late to a platform and still win over that platform’s whole ecosystem.

ActionBarSherlock is an extension of the compatibility library designed to facilitate the use of the action bar design pattern across all versions of Android with a single API.

This is androidpatterns.com, a set of interaction patterns that can help you design Android apps. An interaction pattern is a short hand summary of a design solution that has proven to work more than once. Please be inspired: use them as a guide, not as a law.

So far, Amazon has not been great to developers. (Or book publishers, for that matter.) By most accounts, dealing with Amazon is actually much worse for developers than dealing with Apple. By putting your app in the Amazon Appstore, you’re giving up a lot more control than Apple asks of us: you’re giving up the ability to set your own price and control your app’s description, among many other restrictions. By comparison, it makes Apple look almost… open.

Even with all those reasons, I just can’t believe that there is still only one Android app that I can look at and say: “yes, that’s what I am talking about.”

Even if all the above reasons for not developing for Android are true, it would still seems highly unusual that I was only able to find one good app.

The best guess I have has to be that the “market share” is just not that high, thus not making it “worth” it for developers to make amazing apps for the platform.

Google TV is now out there in the wild. There’s no indication of how it’s selling just yet, but my hunch is that like early Android, it may be some time before sales really take off. That shouldn’t be too surprising considering that the platform is built on top of Android. But there aren’t a lot of apps and sites yet that are tailored for these new devices. They need more. And they know the way to get them. Free giveaways!

As they’ve announced on their Google TV blog today, the search giant is giving away 10,000 Google TV units to developers. Yes, 10,000.

The give-away started this morning at the Adobe MAX conference where they dished out 3,000 units. And it will continue over the next couple of weeks as Google will patrol the Google Code forums to look for developers who sound even remotely interested in developing for the platform. Or you can submit a request to get a unit for development.

Says Google:

As we’ve always said, the coolest thing about Google TV is that we don’t even know what the coolest thing about it will be. The experience is in the hands of its users and developers, and everyone is invited. Come play.

The Google TV unit being given away is the Logitech Revue, a device which normally sells for $300.

Sadly, this giveaway is U.S.-only for the time being. And yes, they want some sort of proof that you are actually a developer that plans to make an app or optimized site for the platform. I’m thinking about learning Java to build a solid fart app for the platform to get a free unit myself.

Update: Google wanted to make it clear that these units are meant to spur developers into making optimized sites for Google TV — not necessarily app developers (not yet at least).

CrunchBase InformationGoogle TVAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase

It took a while, but Skype has now released an application for Android smartphones, enabling users to make free calls to other Skype users and send and receive IMs, one-to-one or with a group. The Android app works over WiFi, 3G, EDGE and GPRS, and comes at a cost that’s hard to beat – gratis.

Big caveats: you can only make calls over WiFi in the United States, and the app is not available in the Android Market in China or Japan. Skype teamed up with Verizon last February to introduce Skype Mobile, including for Android phones, exclusively for the US carrier’s customers.

Also worth noting is that there are known issues with Skype Mobile for the Samsung Galaxy S, which the company says are being investigated.

Not much to add to the news, apart from the fact that you’ll need a phone with Android 2.1 or above to be able to download the app, which you can do from Android Market or by visiting Skype.com/m from your phone.

Skype is now available on three of the most popular mobile platforms today: Android, iOS and Symbian.

Of note: Fring yesterday announced an Android version of its FringOut program, enabling users to make calls at $.01 cent/minute over any data connection (WiFi, 3G and 4G).

No matter which service you prefer, it’s been a good week for Android users so far.

On a sidenote: Skype yesterday announced that it has appointed a new CEO, Tony Bates, a senior VP at Cisco – the company filed to go public last August.

CrunchBase InformationSkypeAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase

Remember back in the day when Google was only activating 100,000 Android units a day? You should — it was May. By June, that number had jumped to 160,000 units a day. And today it now stands at 200,000 Android units activated a day. That’s pretty incredible.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed as much today during a sit down with a group of journalists after his panel at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. When asked about how the Android platform is doing, Schmidt was practically glowing. He cited the recent quarterly shipment numbers (the ones showing total shipments passed those of the iPhone in the U.S.) and said that he just checked their own internal numbers this morning.

When someone said they didn’t know a good way to measure Android’s success, Schmidt quickly responded, “trust me, we do.” He then joked about the fact that he carries around the recently cancelled Nexus One. When someone suggested that was a classic, sort of like the Apple II, Schmidt joked: “is that a compliment?“

Schmidt specifically cited the Droid X as a reason for the recent Android surge. And he noted he was excited about the new Galaxy as well because it’s on all the carriers.

When questioned if the revenue coming in from Android was enough to make the whole project worthwhile, Schmidt said that it absolutely was. He noted that the idea behind Android is that it drives search — and that search is still their primary means of revenue. “Trust me that revenue is large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more,” he noted.

He said that they don’t break out Android revenue numbers because they consider it a part of search.

Schmidt also quickly transitioned to note that they “love the success of the iPhone” as well thanks to how much it also drives search.

Below find the video of him talking about Android.

More from Schmidt:

Eric Schmidt: Every 2 Days We Create As Much Information As We Did Up To 2003

Schmidt Talks Wave’s Death: “We Celebrate Our Failures.” [Video]

Google’s Schmidt Doubts Company Will Get Into “Significant” Gaming

CrunchBase InformationAndroidGoogleEric SchmidtInformation provided by CrunchBase

"History will be made across the nation as anxious customers get their hands on America’s first 3G/4G wireless phone, HTC EVO 4G, packed with industry-leading features."

A little over the top right there, but anyway: you can now purchase the HTC EVO 4G at Sprint.com, Sprint retail stores, at RadioShack, Best Buy and Walmart. The device sells for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new line activation or upgrade.

Today, Facebook is releasing its first official SDK for Android, offering developers on Google’s mobile OS an easy way to tie their Android native apps to Facebook Platform. As AllFacebook noted last week, this SDK is actually more advanced than the iPhone SDK because it features Facebook’s Graph API, which was unveiled at its f8 developer conference last month.

According to the post on Facebook’s Developer blog, the SDK also uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication and the ability to publish stories to Facebook using Feed forms.

I spoke with Facebook’s Steven Soneff about the SDK at Google I/O last week, where Facebook was offering a developer preview. Soneff said that there have been ways to integrate Facebook into Android applications before now, but that these have really been hacked together from the iPhone SDK, and weren’t officially supported by Facebook.

Hopefully this is a sign that Facebook is taking Android a bit more seriously. Facebook’s iPhone SDK launched over a year ago. And the official Facebook application for Android has always felt inferior to the iPhone version — it has been improving, but it still has a ways to go.
CrunchBase InformationFacebookAndroidInformation provided by CrunchBase

Su Android una cosa che non manca sono i software per personalizzare la home, dal tema alle icone alle barre aggiuntive. Ogni programma ha le sue caratteristiche, le sue pecche ed i suoi pregi; l’utente può mediamente sbizzarrirsi nelle impostazioni, creando spesso anche mix di elementi presi da temi differenti, molti dei quali scaricabili gratuitamente dal Market. Tutti i software, però, sono accomunati da un elemento fondamentale: la necessità che l’utente personalizzi l’interfaccia in base alle proprie esigenze ed ai propri gusti.

Intuitive UI, sebbene sia effettivamente un Home Replacement, si discosta dagli altri software per due motivi principalmente: non è un editor di temi, i gusti dell’utente hanno meno peso rispetto alle esigenze.

Può sembrare paradossale che un software di personalizzazione tralasci un lato tanto importante quanto l’aspetto estetico, ma Intuitive UI porta il fulcro della sua utilità sulla velocità e praticità di utilizzo del terminale basandosi sull’uso dell’utente specifico.

Il programma, con il suo utilizzo, impara le abitudini dell’utente e  mostra sulla home icone, ordinandole in profondità, secondo quanto l’utilizzatore di solito compie sul terminale a quell’ora o situazione.

Se ad esempio ogni mattina ci alziamo per fare colazione e leggiamo le news sullo smartphone, Intuitive UI a quell’ora ci mostrerà in primo piano l’icona del software che utilizziamo. Andando a lavoro potremmo attivare la modalità IN AUTO, ed ecco comparire l’icona del software specifico per tale utilizzo (se installato sul terminale). Durante la pausa caffè di metà mattina chiamiamo la nostra fidanzata o moglie? Il suo contatto sarà in primo piano all’ora cui di solito effettuiamo la telefonata.

Allo stesso modo, le icone poste in basso sulla barra, cambieranno in base all’orario, tutto automaticamente secondo le abitudini che abbiamo mostrato al software.

Intuitive UI non risulta ancora disponibile sul Market, ma lo sarà a breve in base alle dichiarazioni della software house che lo produce e che lo ha già rilasciato. Android non sarà l’unica piattaforma a beneficiare di tale tecnologia, ma sicuramente la prima in virtù delle vendite sempre maggiori di terminali mossi dal sistema operativo di Google. Il motto alla base del software è “we bring One Touch Experience to mobile users”.

Maggiori informazioni sono reperibili sul sito del produttore.