{"id":9163,"date":"2009-08-12T14:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T12:40:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-08-12T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T12:40:00","slug":"android-market-pushed-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/9163-android-market-pushed-back.html","title":{"rendered":"Android market pushed back"},"content":{"rendered":"

The availability date for the Android Market release in South Africa has been pushed back to the 14th of August, says Leaf Product Manager Bjorn Gohre.<\/p>\n

Late last month the local HTC distributors revealed that South African Android users would gain access to the international Android Market on the 8th of August, pending approval of the new ROM from both HTC international and Google.<\/p>\n

Gohre has revealed that the final ROM, which users will need to apply to their devices, has not yet been approved by Google but should become available later this week. In an interview some weeks ago (http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/Cellular\/8988.html<\/a>), Gohre added that the process for approving an incoming ROM for Android handsets was a lengthy one owing to the fact that it had to achieve approval status from a number of international parties.<\/p>\n

Thus far HTC international has verified the ROM but Google, the company responsible for developing the Android platform, is yet to give them the go ahead.<\/p>\n

As soon as the ROM is cleared South African users will be able to visit “Leaf stores to have the ROM installed or download the ROM from the Leaf website” said Gohre. The devices will be flashed, returning them to factory settings and deleting all Leaf Open Market applications installed.<\/p>\n

The Leaf Open Market was a local application developed to provide South Africans with the opportunity to download select Android applications.<\/p>\n

Gohre also revealed that the firmware for the HTC Magic, which is exclusive to the Vodacom network, will remain the same with the new ROM added.  The HTC Dream, which is exclusive to MTN, will get a full firmware upgrade – the Android Cupcake update – which was released internationally in late April.<\/p>\n

Cupcake, also known as Android 1.5 allows users to watch videos in camcorder mode, upload clips to YouTube directly from the device. Additionally it features a new soft keyboard with an auto complete function, new widgets and folders and the ability to automatically connect to a Bluetooth headset within a certain distance.<\/p>\n

Gohre was not able to elaborate on issues regarding the vetting process of content onto the Android Market locally, adding that no update had yet been given. For the foreseeable future South African Android users will only have access to free applications. Paid Android applications will be blocked.<\/p>\n

Google Android Market<\/strong><\/a> discussion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local users still waiting on Google verification<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cellular"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}